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PRC 1998 01 27CHANHASSEN PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 27, 1998 Chairwoman Lash called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Jan Lash, Fred Berg, Ron Roeser, Jim Manders, Rod Franks, Jane Meger and Mike Howe. MEMBERS ABSENT: None. STAFF PRESENT: Todd Hoffman, Park and Rec Director; Jerry Ruegemer, Recreation Supervisor; Patty Dexter, Recreation Supervisor VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: Lash: Do we have any visitor presentations that are not scheduled items on our agenda this evening? Anyone in the audience? APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Berg moved, Roeser seconded to approve the Minutes of the Park and Recreation Commission meeting dated December 9, 1997 as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Public Present: Name Address Phone Number Mary Kraft Cindy Will Ron Frigstad Frank Scott John Linforth John Hennessy Joe Scott Jeff Seeley Greg Hromatka Barry Bershow Marlie Johnson Robert D. Naughton Maureen Farrell Rick O'Connor Rich Otto Sam & Nancy Mancino Bruce Trippet 8711 Flamingo Drive 2730 Sandpiper Trail 9270 Kiowa Trail CAA 7471 Canyon Curve 7305 Galpin 1578 Lake Susan Hills Dr. 9366 Kiowa 7580 Canyon Curve 9271 Kiowa Trail 6621 Galpin Blvd. 7591 Chippewa Trail 7336 Fawn Hill 6261 Galpin Blvd. 6291 Hummingbird Road 6620 Galpin Blvd. 1895 Partridge Circle 368-3375 474-2667 496-9038 471-0785 474-1722 474-7345 368-4768 496-1020 474-3417 445-6691 470-0632 974-0925 474-2886 474-4145 470-2202 474-3861 470-8054 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Nadia Janson Jay P. Karlough Anne Devitt Julie Thomdycrafl G.D. DeWeese Fred Amrhein Susan Mitchell Jane Schlangen David Stryuk JoAnn Neff Kitty Sitter David Jensen 2199 Brinker Street 1910 Whitetail Ridge Ct. 6209 Powers Blvd. 1940 Whitetail Ridge Ct. 1940 Whitetail Ridge Ct. 9350 Kiowa Trail 1950 Crestview Circle 1941 Melody Hill Circle 1941 Crestview Circle 2150 Majestic Way 9249 Lake Riley Blvd. 2173 Brinker Street 474-2084 451-1831 470-4489 470-1152 470-1152 496-1026 470-8390 474-1960 474-3186 401-9256 445-5728 470-8940 CITY CENTER PARK AND BANDIMERE PARK REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS~ THE PROPOSED MASTER PLAN AND PROJECT BUDGET. Todd Hoffman presented the staff report on this item. Jeff Schoenbauer: Well I'll try to be very brief with my formal presentation so that we can just open it up for discussion as quickly as possible. Essentially what we've done in our office is compile the notes that we've had and look at the information that we've garnered from the last meeting. And really tried to caress that into a single concept so that we can start focusing on a design direction. That's not to say that there isn't plenty of room for refinement as we move forward with the process here, and I would expect some of those refinements to come out of discussions tonight. What I'm going to do very briefly is just go over the concept for City Center Park here. Talk briefly about the overall budget issues and then move onto Bandimere Park and talk about the budget issues there and then we can come back perhaps and just open up for discussion for both parks, if that suits your needs. Essentially what we've done is really focused on the concept that we talked about last time that focused on more of creating a civic campus type of thing, and really some of the distinguishing features there with parking lot in this area here of the adjacent to City Hall and that thru road. Expansion of the parking lot here. Bringing a lot of the school and community play activity located here into the core of the park. Not only making it safer and more useable for the school, but also making it much more of cohesive part of the overall community park aspect of the project. In this particular plan we're looking at four youth ballfields, laid out as we indicate. We did take out the trees and the cross paths in this area and essentially opened it up for a larger green space, at the concerns that were expressed during the last meetings and we still feel that, in this particular context and configuration, that we can make very appealing community civic campus type of park atmosphere, yet accommodate the needs of the youth athletic association and so forth in a reasonable fashion. In this concept, as was presented, we did allow for some youth soccer fields as a primary user in this particular space. In the other cases they're overlay type of uses and that is something that we'll have to discuss... We're also providing a skating area here. Winter skating and then summer green, and then again the winter hockey and summer skate park. During the Council meeting last night, a couple of things that came up that we'll be looking to incorporate as we go along more clearly is the desire 2 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 in this case for making sure that we don't lose sight of senior and family spaces such as garden spaces, formal garden spaces, lunch, relaxation space. Just this kind of sitting areas and so forth and we'll certainly look to fine tune those as we move to the next level of detail in the plan. So you can be assured that we'll look to incorporate those types of things. Within the context of the overall budget, we're starting to see where the wheel is squeaking and right now it's, based on our very, on our preliminary run through and cost, on the high end we're at something like $850,000.00, and if we start to whittle away at that overall budget project, we're down around $600,000.00. And just as to remind you, our basic working budget on this park or the combined parks is about $1.6. On this one we're trying to focus in $500,000.00. As we move forward here, priorities are something that's going to have to be set as well. With that in mind though, I don't want to lose the context of what we're trying to achieve with the master plan, and that is essentially to set forth what we feel as a group to be the most appropriate design for the park and what we can afford to build thereafter is secondary consideration so keep that in mind. With that I'm going to move very quickly onto Bandimere as an overview and then we can come back and talk about City Center Park. Bandimere Park, we went back and we assessed, again with computers and simulations, what we could achieve on the park, or in this park and what we're showing here is a three field configuration of the ballfields. We did switch this field around so that it, in the core here, the core area from a users standpoint. We were able to make that work by shifting this whole complex up to the northwest a little bit more. We are showing about a 200, or a 194, plus or minus, car parking lot here. And about an 82 car parking lot in this area, which I think averages out to about 45 spaces or so, give or take, for each of the field spaces. Which we found to be generally a workable number. For a youth complex, you can often times, that's a safer bet than adult complex because there's more drop ofl's at youth complexes than there are at adult complexes. Now one of the issues that is certainly going to come up again is the parking issues and so forth, and what we're showing here is about an 82 car parking lot and specifically placed out there to bring service into these parking areas. And really what this amounts to is a balancing act between one versus another. There are some impacts to this parking lot to the adjacent properties here, and I believe there's two houses along this stretch here. So that's certainly one of the things to be considered. It is our belief that we can do a very effective buffering through here aesthetically with trees and so forth and perhaps some berming, keeping in mind we've got our favorite pipeline here to contend with. The only other option with respect to the parking is to pull that parking lot and mass it back in here, adjacent to the other lot and then the down side of that is we tend to get a monolithic parking lot which isn't as aesthetically appealing and also doesn't provide parking adjacent to facilities over here. And the realities of the situation are, is that if we pull this parking out here, it is likely that we'll start to see parking in the neighborhood as soon as people realize it's closer to park there and walk in than it is to park over here. So it's unfortunate, if you will, human characteristic but it is likely to happen under that scenario. We have been very careful to keep open the pedestrian spine through here and what we want to do is make sure that once people exit their vehicles, that there's a reasonable way for them to move around the park and not have to cross over traffic zones again. We did focus more attention on this zone here, and as from a community park standpoint. We moved the facility, the main facility if you will, the restroom, shelter, with perhaps an arbor structure or something architectural, out into here to essentially serve much of the complex. Under ideal situations it might be nice to have the concession building, restroom and so forth in here but we are dealing with some realities of budget on this project as well, and we felt it better to serve the whole complex with a built Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 structure here. Keep in mind that we're going to leave open ample space in the center of this core for a concession in the future. Whether that is a trailer that one would bring in or some other built structure that might come along. Now after the discussions with the City Council last night, with respect to the desire by some of the members to see more facilities that are geared towards a wider variety of users, we went back and did a few minor changes to the plan here, and I'll just overview that. And I think the real focus there was to just allow for other users aside from the youth organizations to have some amenities out there. And what we did was increase this and created more of a family picnic area. Introduced the idea of a hard court adjacent to the play area. Brought in volleyball courts and instead of having two tennis courts, we're showing one tennis court with an adjacent basketball court. The idea here being is just to simply provide more amenity opportunities, not only when the park is being used for, during athletic periods of time, but when it is really the community park aspect that people will be coming to use. We did, as a note on the entrance to the park here, we've begun our conversations with the State as far as safety and concerns related to the entrance here. This is, I still believe to be the best entrance spot from the perspective of servicing the complex, it not only allows us to get people in and distributed very quickly, but it avoids bringing people all the way around and bringing them back into the back end of the project, which really was not held up in high regard by the neighborhood residents along this stretch. As with City Center Park, our initial cost estimates is a little bit high. We're at about $1.3 million for everything that we see in this park, and if we start to take away from some of those things, we whittle it down to about $1.17. So we obviously have some work to do budget wise on this park as well, keeping in mind that it is our obligation to you to make sure that we work within the budget that you have and we'll make sure that that happens as we go along. Lash: What was our budget? Jeff Schoenbauer: $1.1 or so here, and it's a little bit fluid between the park. Referring back to City Center Park, perhaps maybe start there with questions that you have. One of the things that we'll be looking to do as we move forward here is to refine exactly the space requirements for some of these amenities here, and we'll be working not only with Todd and Jerry here at the City, but with Helen and so forth at the school district to kind of define that space a little bit more. With that I'll turn it over for questions. Lash: Okay, thanks. Are there any commissioners who have quick questions on the presentation? Berg: This overlay that you had, after last night. That doesn't sacrifice any field? Jeff Schoenbauer: No it does not. It just takes more advantage and changes the space that already was green space if you will. Lash: I was interested in the dollar amounts that you gave us. The $850,000.00 anywhere down to $600. Does that include relocating the tennis courts or leaving those? Jeff Schoenbauer: That's leaving them in both cases where they are. What we're doing essentially to get down to that $609, as far as big item numbers, is parking areas. I guess as we move into our next phase after tonight, we'll be bringing forth what we think to be a best way to 4 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 approach it, and largely, just generally speaking, we're going to be suggesting that you take care of your core. Make sure that you deal with those issues first and then work out from there. Unfortunately some of the nice cities are in the periphery but that's just the reality. Lash: Anyone else with questions for Jeff'? Okay, we'll open this up for visitor comments and I will ask that you come forward to the podium and state your name for the record. I think we'll do City Center first and then move on .... questions about City Center? Helen Merchant: My name is Helen Merchant and I just want to comment on the youth facilities for the baseball field. The one that's directly behind the school, I know in the note here it said that the youth baseball association had a real strong desire for one more field and we've, we talked about it over at the school and we really believe that we need that flexibility as far as the soccer fields for the phy ed activities that are taking place behind the school so that was our only concern that we not add another baseball field directly behind the school. Lash: I have a question for you Helen. I was just wondering, with the playground location and then that row of trees to the west, are you okay with that or does that block your sight lines too much for? Helen Merchant: We're okay with that because our phy ed activities take place directly behind the building, so I had talked to the phy ed teachers about that today and they were fine with that. Thank you for removing the other trees right in the middle there. That really helped. Thanks Jefl~ Jeff Schoenbauer: Sure. And we move forward, keep in mind that we're very cognizant of the issues of safety and visibility so those trees that we select will be very, kept that in mind. Frank Scott: In response to the last question. My name is Frank Scott. In response to the last question. We can use those soccer fields for t-ball. I mean that's, basically that's what we would do is lay those out for the t-ball if somebody hasn't reserved them for soccer. So the ballfields we're looking at are the beginning baseball and beginning softball and the soccer fields would be... I guess the only question, on the map I got, on the, they talk about.., there may be a... field or something. I can't locate that... Jeff Schoenbauer: Yeah, that would be right here. We're not anticipating that because of budgetary constraints, that this will happen under this phase. So essentially we'll have another soccer field in this area. At least in the short tenn. What is expected at this point, given that the area in front of City Hall is likely to be designed in the next few years, is that this concept will be carried forward into that process and tie everything together would be the intent. Lash: Then we would lose the soccer field? Jeff Schoenbauer: Then you would lose the soccer field at that point, right. And I really wanted to stress that I appreciate this, what the associations are trying to achieve because they do have needs but in the overall context of the park, I do think that this access drive is going to be very important in the long tenn. We are introducing more organized, usable space in the concepts that Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 we're showing and in order to eliminate some of the parking pressure on here, we simply have to I think provide reasonable access to these back parking lots. And if this does not exist, forcing people to go around several blocks and come up, they're just simply going to start dispersing out into these... So that's just something to be kept in mind longer term but realistically.., in the shorter term. Lash: Could you just point out where the existing new parking lot is up there? Jeff Schoenbauer: In here? Lash: Yes. No, no. The City Hall one. Jeff Schoenbauer: The new part of the lot would essentially be here. Lash: No, what's there now? Jeff Schoenbauer: Oh, the existing lot... Manders: How much additional parking does that afford us in that location? Jeff Schoenbauer: I don't know, Jason do you recall? 30, give or take in here. In our opinion I guess, the parking is the side benefit of the road going through to access this parking. Manders: Is that road intended to be both directions? Hoffman: The long term plan for the entire City Center Park... in front of the building and create a green town square, and then this road would play a very important role here at City Hall to allow for cross traffic between Kerber Boulevard and the postal service... Frank Scott: While I'm up here, do you want a mn down on these sheets I gave you or do you understand? I'll probably be back but if you want me to stay up, I'd be happy to. Lash: Do you want to mn down them? Frank Scott: Run down them. The first one that's called, the stats of Bandimere. It just shows what our numbers were last year. The baseball numbers have been expanded about 10% a year, and that's based on the last few years we've done it. The softball numbers are expanded about 7 1/2% a year and I've put them out 7 years. It seems like 7's always a neat number for the next referendum or whatever so I moved them out 7 years to show you we're we'd be. I listed the fields as we call them. Now I want to, I listed all the fields. These are not necessarily all the fields we get assigned to us, but in order to make, to show you what our needs are against what you've got, I listed all the fields. The small ones would include Carver Beach and Rice Marsh, which of course you'd like to take out of service if you could. I also listed those two soccer fields at the City Center that we would use for t-ball. And on the mid-sized fields, I listed Lake Ann 2, 3 and 6. We do get access to those fields, although 6 is not necessarily... Meadow Green 1 and 2 6 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 and the new one at Bandimere. I said would come on line in 1999 and I guess I got kind of optimistic but that's, I stuck it there anyway. The other page, I then took these numbers of teams, one more thing. The number of teams were, I divided all those by 13 so I said there's 13 kids per team so the number of teams then are on the other page is based on that. I then brought these over to this other page. The only thing I added to it was the city has a t-ball program that they ran last year and they used 8 segments for their, and we use 8.7. And also for t-ball we do play two games a night on each field so when I total them up at the bottom, I cut those in half so where it says total of small fields needed, I've got 34. That's half of the t-ball numbers and then a full one of the other ones. And the fields we have, then I took off of the sheet before here that says, I've got these many small fields. As you can see, we go out 7 years from now. We need 65, a little over 65 and you've got 65. But again that's including Carver Beach, Rice Marsh and it also includes Bluff Creek. All of them, 1 through 5 and we did not have access to all those fields but those are small fields and they would fit our needs. Under the mid-sized fields, they also, interestingly enough, and I did not lay that half on there until I got the other part done but out 7 years from now we need 29.7 and you've got 30 so, that came out pretty good. The other thing we do have is, on this bottom one, which is the larger boys and it really is like that Field #1 over at Lake Ann and one of the new fields at Bandimere. There is the lights on the field at Lake Ann. I did not add that so where it shows under 1998 that we have five, we really do have 10 because we can use, we can have.., and so each one of these would go up by five because we do have another field I didn't count so. So as that tums out, that also would last us out through that period of time. Questions? Lash: So in summary you're saying that the plans that we have will meet your needs for the next 7 years out. Frank Scott: If the growth isn't greater than 10%, but now again that's saying we're getting all these fields and I'm sure Jerry's not going to agree to that. I mean, because he's got South Tonka Little League. He's got some girls softball... Some of these fields actually are given up for fall soccer. Not fall soccer, spring soccer. But yes, if we got all the fields we have enough but. Lash: And going, and working just week nights and not having to use weekends like you've? Frank Scott: That's what this is predicated on. Lash: Okay. Frank Scott: Now weekends we do use for practices because this way, these are all games. These are game nights so if anybody wants to have a practice, they have to ask for the field on weekends. Berg: Frank, that also includes three fields, you anticipate three fields at Bandimere? Franks Scott: You'll see, actually the large field, I did not put on here. The large field is the 14 and up. It's like the Lake Susan field and right now we don't, we, CAA do not have programs at that age group. They have them in Chaska and we go along with them. But this year the 13 year 7 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 olds, last year we had like one team of 13 year olds. This year they're going to have probably about five and that's, so next year the 14 year olds are going to have that many and it's going to be... so I don't have the numbers to justify those so I left one of them. But I did use one at Bandimere for the large size. That's the one that adds in year 2000 here, put it up to 10 and the one, I did add the total mid in the year 2000 that brought that up to 30 so those are the two fields that I, for Bandimere. Lash: Okay, thanks Frank. A.J. Dordell: I'm A.J. Dordell. I'm involved with Frank with the CAA. I just wanted to stress a couple things that maybe weren't clear in what Frank had indicated. The reason we don't, he's not budgeting the large fields is we do send our kids down to Chaska, but it's a joint program negotiated basically with the CAA, but rather than, at those age levels there aren't the numbers to each have our own programs so I've got to believe that as our numbers are, and they're ballooning coming up, that they're going to need see fields out of Chanhassen in order to allow those Chanhassen kids to play down there. So, while we are not budgeting for them, there will be the need there. The second thing I just want to make clear is, for example in the five fields at Bluff Creek last year, we were given access to only two of them most of the time and I don't know of anything that's going to change there so I kind of wish Frank wouldn't have included those three fields in these numbers because two of them were tied up exclusive for soccer. Because when you do these soccer overlays, it works fine for our programs which are in spring we off'er baseball and fall we off'er soccer but the spring soccer association is booming and so they, you know when you have these overlays, you can't count these fields as both baseball fields and soccer fields because you know only one of them can use it at a time. And then the other field was basically taken by the city's t-ball, preschool program. We had determined that the CAA be, to conserve on fields, that we didn't feel there was a lot of value to offering 5 year old t-ball and we dropped the program but we, you know to save on field demand, but that didn't come true because the city then just filled in at the 5 and under with t-ball so there's the same field demand as if we would have kept offering it so, you know, whatever it is, I wanted to make those points clear. Lash: Anyone else from the audience with comments about City Center. Bob Naughton: My name's Bob Naughton. I live at 7591 Chippewa Trail, which is at the top of this chart. If you look at that, my property is up here.., right there. My concern, being a new property owner, especially here, which I moved in in September, was not aware when I purchased the property that this park was being constructed. We look at this diagram, you have a lot of coverage around the park with trees, except up at the top where my property is and there's several other homeowners there. I don't know why you haven't considered us. You know what we're going to look at. The noise issues that we're going to face with these parks. I'm very concerned because basically I'm surrounded by this park. I'm concerned about my property values, that they're going to drop. If you look at my assessments, I did receive value for the trees and the views out the back of my house when it was assessed. I'm sure that you're going to tax me on those. You know I wish we'd look at that upper portion of this park and at least move it and give it some more coverage so we don't have to see this out the back of my home. The other thing is, I don't know what I'm going to deal with, have to deal with people walking across my property. I 8 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 have a dog. I'm going to have to control that dog, even though I have, I'm going to put in an Invisible Fence. I'm going to have children walking from the park, you know through my yard, I'm sure. So I'm concerned with those type of issues. You know I realize that we have to have parks. I realize that this is something that the community wants, but you have to take into consideration what the people that live along the back portion of those parks are going to have to contend with. And in this plan, I don't think that you have. You have not assessed what affect this is going to have on our property value. You obviously have not taken care in the way you design the park to shield us from it's view. I talked to Todd on the phone. I sent all of you letters, which you should have received yesterday. These are my concerns. I don't know what to do. You know, being a new resident, I didn't know that this was happening. Thank you. Jeff Schoenbauer: ... I did talk to Bob a couple days ago and Jason and I looked at it a little bit and what we'll do before we come back again is look if we can shift these fields around a little bit to give more of a buff'er in this particular area here and see what we can accomplish in that regard. We may have to give up some green space here that we've been tentatively preserving, if you will, but we'll look at that and see if we can't make that more acceptable to the residents. Lash: Is there possibilities ofbermings and? Jeff Schoenbauer: I think for sure we can probably move this over this direction a little bit. Maybe pull it back a little bit this way and increase the distance of buff'er here. That would open up opportunities for berming, trees. Lash: Having trees and shrubs or whatever, all the way along on both. Jeff Schoenbauer: On both edges here? Lash: Right. Jeff Schoenbauer: Yeah, we can look. Lash: And that would eliminate the possibility, or the temptation for people to cut through his yard. Jeff Schoenbauer: And as we move along in the design process, we'll get more detailed as to what that will look like and we'll meet with the residents and talk about those issues. Lash: Mr. Naughton, are you a little more comfortable with? Bob Naughton: The only other concern that I had was the drainage. I have a drainage ditch that runs through that property. When anything... Jeff Schoenbauer: As far as the grading goes, it is our obligation to control off site runoff so we won't look to increase it certainly, and if there is a drainage problem that's associated with the park, we'll look to resolve that when we grade it. 9 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Lash: Because I see if we put berms in, that would only exaggerate his problems. Jeff Schoenbauer: Yeah, yeah. See we may not have that luxury, if in fact he's draining this direction. We'll have to that into consideration and that's the next step as we move forward. Bob Naughton: It's draining from the top... Jeff Schoenbauer: Right here? Bob Naughton: ... that water's moving... Jeff Schoenbauer: Sure. Yeah, and again we will certainly deal with any of those complications that are related to the park itself. I can assure you that we wouldn't look to go onto a residential properly to deal with those. Lash: I guess I would want to feel secure that we are going to be sensitive to those residents in every way that we can work with them however we can. Jeff Schoenbauer: Yes, and we'll look to do that as we move forward. Lash: Okay, thanks. Anyone else with comments for City Center? Gary Koskey: Hi, I'm Gary Koskey with the Chan Chaska Soccer Association. The baseball people took up a good point with the overlay of the soccer fields and the baseball fields. Actually what ends up happening is they, soccer and baseball end up actually kind of losing out on the deal. You know with the baseball field there and the baseball people not being able to use it because soccer is there, we get to use it but at the same time it's designed also as a ballfield so you have the gravel infield and we'll end up, some of our fields end up going into the gravel during a soccer game and that's not safe or whatever you want to call it. It doesn't work real well with soccer running from grass onto the gravel of the infields. So I don't know what you can do except to keep maybe somehow the baseball fields as baseball fields and the soccer fields as soccer fields. Lash: And have fewer? Gary Koskey: Excuse me? I guess, like in the fall I would think that baseball cuts down and soccer picks up. You know and then you could use some of the baseball fields, if you put the soccer field out further or something. But like I say, right now it kind of, with both baseball and soccer end up kind of getting the short end of the stick on the deal because like you say, with the design as a baseball field with that gravel infield, hitting into the soccer field, it just doesn't work real well. Berg: Are you better off if you just designate that an area for soccer and a designated spot for baseball? 10 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Gary Koskey: Better, but like I say, in the fall I know that the soccer program gets, Chan and Chaska, really goes crazy and they need a lot of fields. So we take whatever we can get, you know. Berg: But you're asking for fewer fields. Gary Koskey: Well, no I'm not asking for, well in that sense yeah. But as a real soccer field, like I say, we take whatever we can get and if it ends up that we have to put our field onto the gravel, that's what we do. But what I'm just trying to point out here, and like what baseball pointed out too, is that you can't really put two fields onto one because obviously only baseball's going to use it or soccer's going to use it at one time. Manders: ... something on this overlap between the infield gravel area and the soccer. I mean it appears to me that there isn't that concern. Because the infields are designated by those small lines around the diamond and your soccer's outside of that. Gary Koskey: Well that was one thing I was going to point out is that on, which one is it? You're right on these ones. If you don't...but on other fields that we've used, like over at Bluff Creek. It cuts in there. I mean they weren't, the way they were set up, that's the way it ended up but. Lash: But this particular plan. Gary Koskey: This one isn't too bad, yeah. But one thing I also wanted to point out was that the 40 x 80 on the two soccer fields that are, yep. We actually need like 10 more yards on that. Our 9 and 10 year old kids need a 50 x 80 yard field, and I noticed that on the Bandimere one, it looks like they're going to be turning the existing 9 and 10 year old soccer field into a green space. Or that's what it looked like anyway. I'm not sure. Let's see. This is where the soccer field is right now. So we would be losing a much needed soccer field right there. There's eight, yeah there's, let's see. Four at 9 year old and four at 10 year old that need that field and if we lose that, we need to go somewhere and we also have to go according to the rules of the soccer league for field sizes and we need a 50 x 80 for that age of kids. And if we lose that one at Bandimere, we need to put it back in somewhere. Lash: Which way, what are you talking about losing... ? Gary Koskey: Okay, there's a, on the Bandimere field, there's already a 9 and 10 year old soccer field there. Lash: Oh, down. The one down. Gary Koskey: Right. That they're going to turn into a green space or whatever so, and you know we're going to end up actually losing a soccer field with that one going to green space. 11 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Howe: You're gaining soccer fields. You're losing a soccer field but I see six... Gary Koskey: Wait, but what I'm pointing out is if this one stays at 40 x 80, we don't have any for the 9 and 10 year old kids. We need at 50 yards wide. Lash: The one at City Center. Howe: There's one at City Center here that looks like it could be expanded to 50 x 80. Gary Koskey: Yeah, if we can get you know, it would be nice on those two if they could somehow make them 50 x 80. Lash: Well that doesn't look like it'd be too hard to do with that. Jeff Schoenbauer: ... There's a 40 x 80 and a 35 x 65 was the size of fields that were defined for us in the program. We'll look to enlarge at least one of those to 50 x 80. Gary Koskey: Well I think what they're pointing out is for the even younger kids, but the 9 and 10 year old kids, like you say, use that field at Bandimere right now and it is regulation size and like you say, for the traveling soccer we have to get the fields to size according to the MYSA rules and that one already fits those rules. Lash: But you can see on the City Center plan it'd be. Gary Koskey: Those would be a little bit small. Lash: I mean it's easy, it'd be easy enough to make it 50. Gary Koskey: Well yeah. Well I just wanted to point out though. If for whatever reason you end up putting the trees in there and it ended only being 40 yards, we'd end up losing a field then. So thank you. Lash: Okay, thanks. Anyone else in the audience with comments about City Center? Okay. We'll move on to Bandimere. Jeff Schoenbauer: We'll look to incorporate those as best we can. Just to refresh, the real struggle for us internally in our office has been trying to accommodate as many athletic facilities as we can. The realities are we have the Williams Pipeline and we're going to be testing their patience already with what we're proposing. And we have limitations with TH 101 as far as access and so forth. So in my mind, in my mind I think the plan has achieved a reasonable balance between community, athletic and neighborhood concerns and we'll work from there. Berg: Are you saying that based on the overlay that you showed us? 12 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Jeff Schoenbauer: Yeah, yeah. I think we can reasonably include the overlay and add a few amenities to it. Lash: This doesn't have the overlay on it, does it? Jeff Schoenbauer: Yes it does. Lash: Okay. Can you just go through it, off and on again? Jeff Schoenbauer: Essentially what we're suggesting here, and really all we're doing is just manipulating what we are proposing. We're essentially looking at this much more closely as a family recreation area and by doing that really, what we're doing is adding a hard court area that just expands the play opportunities for younger kids in this area. And this could become a family picnic area. And in here we're essentially taking out one tennis court and adding a basketball court, which in recent years has proven to be very successful because there is more of a demand for basketball than tennis outdoors these days. And then we've also added a sand volleyball here as well, and that really, one of those quite frankly should serve the purposes here quite well. Oh yeah, in talking with Todd and his discussions with the trail here, this is an awfully nice spot, in this general location for an overview of the wetlands across the road, and what we're trying to do is play upon the existing silo and see if we can't turn that into a picnic shelter, rest stop type thing for along the trail. Just a small type of amenity. Berg: Is that a full court basketball court? Jeff Schoenbauer: Yeah that is at this point. And I just wanted to point out that we are looking to preserve as much of this buff'er as we can along here, and then obviously a naturalized buff'er in through here which again maintains that separation belween the neighborhood component and the community park component. Lash: Anyone on the commission with quick questions regarding Bandimere? Berg: Are you confident with the way you've got the parking configured, etc, that the concern of the residents along the west side.., east side? Jeff Schoenbauer: This side here? Berg: No. Jeff Schoenbauer: Exactly opposite, yeah. Berg: They were concerned that there was an awful lot of traffic coming in through there when they were using the neighborhood park. Jeff Schoenbauer: Oh yeah. 13 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Berg: Are you confident that that will be alleviated now? Jeff Schoenbauer: I am confident that we'll alleviate probably most of that. Especially if we really go with the recommendation to change this to just a neighborhood green space versus a soccer space. These are designed to be big soccer greens so it's reasonable to expect that at any given time these could be cut into a number of different sized fields for whatever purpose you have and demand you have. As could this one as well. Lash: I guess my concern is for parking. I think on the original plan you had 300 or plus spots and it's now down to 276? Jeff Schoenbauer: Yes. We have about, we're going to assess that again but I think the other plan, with the greater number of parking spaces, had more facilities too. Yeah... but I think we're quite comfortable that we can accommodate the parking that we'll need within these lwo spaces for the site. Lash: Okay. Any other commissioner comments or questions? Manders: This is probably not an issue because we have enough other road problems but is there any concern with TH 101 in terms of that road configuration around that park? Jeff Schoenbauer: Well it is not going to be an easy nor cheap thing to deal with. In all likelihood we're going to have to go into TH 101 here and change the grading from this road. It isn't so bad as far as the sight lines, except for the fact that it drops off and comes down. And it's in all likelihood we'll have to go in and change that so the sight lines in either direction are more appropriate. Once we get beyond this stage of accepting the master plan, then we'll move in with traffic engineering and MnDot to look at that intersection more seriously. I can't stand here right now and tell you that everything is going to be accepted carte blanche and we may have to come, be forced to come back and look at that again. But for right now this would be what I would recommend as our starting point and we'll work from there. Yeah. It is our concern too with the traffic movements in and out of here, that it be a safe intersection and we'll start that assessment real soon now. Lash: Anyone else? Okay, we'll open it up for public comments and questions. If you have any about Bandimere. Resident: I noticed that over there in the handouts is a plan with four baseball diamonds that has not been addressed here. And I guess I'm not quite sure why. But I know that one of the issues was, on the note on here that it would remove a soccer field and parking lot because we're concerned with how many. I guess it seems to me like the parking estimates are kind of high on these as to what we need on a field. I mean you've got 26 kids playing. I can't imagine that, you know mostly there's a couple grandmas and grandpas there but not a whole lot. And most of the kids themselves, I'm sure there must be some basis for that but it seems like there's some desire for 46 cars per field seems excessive to me. I don't know, but I'm not the expert. But I'm just wondering why, I guess I'm a little disappointed in all of our anticipation that we have a net gain 14 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 here of three baseball diamonds and two soccer fields by this park, because there are three soccer fields planned there. There already is existing one that goes away so that's really only a net gain of two from the referendum, and three baseball diamonds and I guess I'm, you know as the President of the association, kind of disappointed from where I thought we were heading. Lash: What did you think we were going to get? Resident: I don't have those original deals with me and I don't know if they just got all turned to soccer fields or whatever but I know there was a lot more ball diamonds anticipated than this. So I guess I'd like to consider the four baseball diamonds planned and it was not addressed here and I don't know why. Lash: Were you at the meeting last, two weeks ago? Resident: I was not able to. Lash: Okay, and I can answer that quickly for you I think. We had some concerned residents along the northern boundary line regarding parking right along their properly. Resident: But this plan changes, is a different parking schematic than what you had last meeting. Lash: But it still has got the park, is the one that you're looking at? Resident: Yeah. Lash: Yeah. It's still got parking right up to their properly line, and I'm assuming Jefl} was that. Jeff Schoenbauer: The realities of the site, and I can appreciate when the original concepts were done, the exact dimensions of the site were not surveyed and on and on. The reality is that we have to make choices and if we make a choice to put another ballfield in here, the only choice that remains is to remove this soccer field and increase parking. And the other side of that coin is on the budgetary end of things. To add another field and accommodate that field, we're talking somewhere between $50,000.00 and $80,000.00. In a situation where we're already going to have some hard choices to make as we go forward so. So that is what the realities are. Lash: Frank. Frank Scott: On this, the one that we're not looking at. The designer chose to editorialize on this one and I'd like to speak to that. They didn't take the soccer field off of there and put a parking lot in there. Originally he left it there and wrote across it that if we were to get another ballfield, the soccer people would lose their field. I think it's very evident and irresponsible that he chose to do this in this manner. I think the soccer people and the baseball people were trying to work together to come up with a nice plan and I think it's his choice to cause some friction between the two and I certainly don't like that. Another thing that he did, on this one, he said that he's got this many cars in there and he's short 70 places. When I went back to the last ones we used last week, 15 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 if there's 315 parking spaces required here, last week on Vi, which also had the same number of fields, you only required 266 parking spaces which is only 21 different than here, not 70. And on B3 he needed 280 parking spaces so in no case last week did he need this many parking spaces for the same number of fields and suddenly on this one, he requires 315. I guess I have a little problem with that. Lash: We only have 276. Frank Scott: He's saying down here, he's got it circled parking lot. Approximately 70 spaces needed for the, or 70 spaces need to be added for the 315 that are needed. And 315 is not a number that I'm, that I am accustomed to. Another editorial you chose to make is the, that the local athletic associations are adamant about a fourth ballfield. That is not true. We're adamant about using and getting the best number of facilities in this area that we can get. Whether it's soccer fields or baseball fields. I don't think at that time it was true and I don't think now it's true. I think he could have done a much better job and could come up with more facilities than he did. Thank you very much. Lash: Is there anyone else from the audience? Jefl] did you want to make a comment? Jeff Schoenbauer: Well it just, my job is to try to maximize the facility as best we can and there are choices to make. It doesn't matter to me if the space is used for a softball field or a baseball field versus soccer. All I was getting at is the choice had to be made. It wasn't meant to cast aspersions or anything like that. Ann Moksnes: Ann Moksnes and I'm a resident on Kiowa Trail. Part of the neighborhood park area. We happened to buy the lot from Art Bandimere's estate when he passed away so we knew that the city was purchasing this property back in '89 and then thrilled about it. Only concern, and a very small one. I'm hoping it can be considered. When we had a meeting following the last open forum meeting, at the suggestion I think of the city people to get together and just really talk about and brainstorm on the neighborhood park, the only suggestion that we made that's important to some people that couldn't be here tonight, as well as it is to myself, is the connecting, the trail. Kiowa Trail is a pebble, dead end street without sidewalks and we, in some ways we love that but there is no place, no place for children to ride bikes or trikes, except the street or the driveway. If you have a flat driveway, that's great. If you don't, you've got a problem. So the one thing we mentioned, and as you look at the trail going around the neighborhood park, connecting up to the community park, I mean it looks fabulous. There's a very short distance between here and here whereas if there was a connection, both for adult walkers and for young children on trikes or bikes or that type of thing, it would get them off the street in some sort of a pattern where they are visible. They're not on the streets, this park area is visible from the homes on Kiowa Trail, especially the people on this side of the street that live down closer to the park. I'm up here but down here. Again, it's just a request and I was asked to bring it up again tonight if, I realize we're going to be under budget constraints but I don't know how much that much path would cost. Lash: You're talking about linking the two? 16 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Ann Moksnes: Linking the two so that at that lower level, the people here that aren't aware, need to be aware that there's quite a great difference between this community park and where this is. This is a steep hill right here with these trees on it. I don't know how that grading will all come about but you can't, you won't be able to at eye level to see up here from down here, so. Lash: Okay, thanks Ann. Jeff Schoenbauer: From a master planning standpoint, we can reassess that and perhaps add that. There is a significant grade change between the two. The reason we didn't do it initially is we had concern about people wandering into the neighborhood, just because they were following the trail. But if it's their desire to have that shown, we can look at that. Lash: Okay. Manders: So ifI understand that comment, that trail would be on the bottom piece of the original? Jeff Schoenbauer: Yeah. This would essentially. Manders: ... be put in where you're pointing. Jeff Schoenbauer: Yeah, this here we anticipated already to link the neighborhood to this trail system through the park. What is being suggested is to bring that trail and link it up here so you essentially have a small loop right here and that's something that we can certainly add and whether or not it makes in the budget is something to assess later but that can be added. Lash: It also can be in the budget now or in a year in the budget or whatever, okay. As long as we know that they want it in... Jeff Schoenbauer: Yes. Lash: Okay. Kitty Sitter: Kitty Sitter. I'm a resident over in the Bandimere Park area. One athletic facility that has not been brought up yet, and that's the football fields. We have kids playing right now in the Eden Prairie district and perhaps we may be looking at starting something here in Chan because of the fact that there are more kids playing that and the fields are getting less and less. So it's something that I'd like you to consider. There isn't anything cut and dry yet as far as athletic association backing that information yet, so I don't have any facts or figures for you, but I would like you to consider that because it is something in the future that may happen. Perhaps it can be done in the outside of those field areas. It's something to consider. The other thing I want to find out, it's one other question for you, is Finger's property, have we heard anything as far as if he's accepting the buffer zone that's along there? We've got a whole bunch of parking up in that area. I know that was a consideration before. 17 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Lash: We did receive a letter from them. Kitty Sitter: And could you comment on that for us Jan to find out how he's accepting that? Lash: Yeah, he was not able to come to the meeting tonight and it's my understanding, he says in conclusion it looks like we're very close to a concept that will satisfy all and I think that there's been discussion with him regarding some berming and vegetation along his properly line that I think he is satisfied with. Kitty Sitter: Thank you. Lash: Am I correct? Jeff Schoenbauer: ... that point, yeah. We have increased the distance between the properly line and the parking area and it is our intent to do a pretty intensive job of landscaping through there. We'll work with them on trying to make that work. Greg Hromatka: My name is Greg Hromatka and I'm a resident in the Saddlebrook area. My concern is the ballfields and the space. The use. The intelligent use. Ballfields, soccer fields, it's a reality. They need a fairly level area and their space is somewhat large and defined. What I'm seeing is then, it'd be better to forego some of the green space in a way that you mentioned around the silo. Utilizing that for picnic shelters and areas. You can see another example in the limited area space along Kerber Boulevard, the pond park. There's a picnic table along some trees there. You don't need great areas of space to use in that nature, but you do need a larger imprint of area to create the ballfields that are needed, and if we don't look ahead, we're going to be short in a year's time, two years time for sure. Lash: Greg, do you understand about the pipeline? Greg Hromatka: Yes I do. Lash: Okay. And that we can't put any type of facility like that where the pipeline is. Greg Hromatka: I understand but there was a facility, a picture with four spaces again so I mean, you know shifting or utilizing the green like towards the silo like you mentioned and you know, a picnic area or whatever. However you define those. Jeff Schoenbauer: Yeah. This, quite frankly this space is very difficult for us to use because of the pipeline situation. The only way that we could gain any space, if you will, is to reorientate this field back the way it was on an earlier concept, which throws it out of sync with the common space area here that's desirable, and it also raised concerns that people going to this ballfield, if it were switched over here, would be going through the neighborhood to access it versus parking up here. So it really is a judgment or a balancing of the different things that we're contending with and I wish, I wish we could. Jason and I spent many hours playing with different field 18 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 configurations trying to squeeze something else on here and it just is not going to happen without something coming out the other end. Lash: Thanks Greg. Anyone else? Barry Bershow: Barry Bershow. I live on Kiowa Trail. Everybody gets a lot of criticism for doing this so I've kind of been a silent participant as you've unlaid these plans over here. I think he did a brilliant job. This is, to me is a masterful compromise over all the complaints and the problems that we've been addressing and I would like to speak in favor of this configuration that's up on the board instead of the four diamond. Not only do we lose the soccer field by going to that fourth baseball diamond, but we also apparently lose the tennis court and the basketball court so we're kind of losing three athletic activities to get one baseball field under that new configuration. So I really like this approach and somebody who lives you know, across the street from what's going to be... (There was a tape change at this point in the discussion.) Lash: Anyone else from the audience? Jeff Seeley: My name's Jeff Seeley. I also live on Kiowa Trail and I would agree, this works very well and I can tell you, having five families from the street over Sunday, they were all very happy to see this change. My question.., parking if we take out the landscaping in the center here.., for outside but we get to an issue that's important to everybody... That's it. That's a question. Jeff Schoenbauer: What we try to do is quite frankly take a little bit of liberty with parking lot in part, if we can, to change the configuration so it isn't as though you're pulling up to the local convenience store. And what we're trying to do here is just make a parking lot a little bit more interesting. It still allows us to deal with the pipeline that goes through here. So instead of having a... lot right in front of the houses and so forth, we broke it up with more landscaping and so forth. As in the parking lot here, we'd rather lose a couple spots and increase the amount of landscaping in this lot, than have it a big monolithic isn't that appealing in a setting like this. That's the reasoning behind it at least. Lash: Other questions or comments from the audience? Cindy Will: Yes, my name is Cindy Will and I was here at the last meeting and there's a concept that you didn't choose. The concept.., but it shows a field.., nobody however chose that because of the parking that went in and out. So I don't understand why they came up with these different concepts that the fields are in different areas and yet the pipeline's a problem in some of them and it wasn't in the other. Is there? Jeff Schoenbauer: Yeah, a reason for that. In this particular case, it's just that the very way that this field was placed. It's surrounding the pipeline on a point that was relatively level on the pipeline. It's literally about the only spot that the field could possibly happen, and that's what 19 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 essentially.., this concept then is you start building around that and you bring vehicles into here. As you can see, the net gain when you look at this, the number of facilities of four ballfields spread out and one soccer green space, the net gain is less than what you have in the other scheme. In this case we indicate four ballfields. If the choice was made to go with four ballfields, that could also be accommodated here with again less soccer space as shown on the other concept. So it's just that juggling act that we've looked at a multitude of different ways to successfully. Lash: And that also pushed the fields pretty close to the neighbors. Jeff Schoenbauer: Right, and it also brought the road internally and knowing now what we know about the cost estimates, that would have been a more expensive infrastructure to build to begin with so we had more problems there as well. Lash: Anyone else from the audience? Ron Frigstad: My name is Ron Frigstad. I live at 9270 Kiowa Trail. I guess my question is about the infrastructure cost. How long, how much is it going to cost just to realign... Jeff Schoenbauer: We don't know that yet. We're estimating several thousand dollars obviously but we haven't gotten to the level. Ron Frigstad: Is there anything in that $1.33 million that should affect that at all yet? Or is that going to come off the one. Jeff Schoenbauer: That would come off the $1.1 at this point. But we have to work with both MnDot, and in all likelihood Carver County will get involved in that discussion. Ron Frigstad: Will they pay any of that? Can we get any money from them? Jeff Schoenbauer: Not too likely at this point. Ron Frigstad: Okay. So if we're looking at full double left turn lane and realigning the sight distances, we can spend a couple hundred thousand dollars on TH 101. Jeff Schoenbauer: You could probably spend $60,000.00, yeah. Ron Frigstad: And that won't change no matter where we address it along TH 1017 We have to accommodate those turn lanes for the traffic movement. Lash: Anyone else? Okay. Seeing no more comments on Bandimere, oh. Resident: For the soccer fields. Over at Lake Ann, it's our only soccer field actually. And it's got a watering system on it. It's a fabulous field because of that watering system. I think we had like 68 games on that field last year and it held up quite well but it was because of the watering 20 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 system. On these new fields, and I realize the watering system is expensive and would add to the cost, but in the long mn I think it would help keep the fields in better shape because I've seen, for instance in Chaska fields that we're using and they don't have a watering system and they're just chewed up by the end of the season. Lash: I think we have planned on it. Resident: Oh it has been. Jeff Schoenbauer: I suspect that's a higher priority than a lower one so it's like to be. Resident: Oh for sure. I just want to bring it up. I didn't know. Lash: We learned that lesson the hard way already so that's not something we want to cut. Okay, anybody else. We're going to try and move this along. There are other issues that we want to try and get at yet tonight. So I'm going to close public comments regarding Bandimere and City Center and open this up for any more commissioner comments. How about if we just start with City Center and make a motion on that and then do Bandimere separately. We'll go down. Look for comments. Start with Jim. Manders: I guess my only question pertains to the tree line structure in the kind of the center of the park. If. Jeff Schoenbauer: Along here? Manders: Yeah, I think kind of that L shape in there. How much that compromises the use of the park for whatever else. School or for the city or. Jeff Schoenbauer: We see this as basically a promenade that's...behind the overall aesthetic of the park. We recognize though that we don't want to impede the usability of it as well. I think we can achieve a balance between the two and we'll try to illustrate that for you next time how we plan to do that. And if you're not comfortable with it, we'll revise it. Manders: No. I guess that's my concern. I guess I don't mind it being there but is it an issue. Otherwise I like the idea of retaining the tennis courts where we can minimize those costs. The idea of adjusting the ball diamonds on the top a bit to accommodate some kind of barrier I think is great. Jeff Schoenbauer: We'll definitely look to alleviate some of those concerns that the gentleman had. Manders: And as far as the soccer fields, from what I recall, I mean having two or potentially three independent soccer fields that aren't overlaying ballfields, I think that's as good a plan. I think this accomplishes that. 21 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Jeff Schoenbauer: Yeah, we tried to lay in the size of fields that the association had given us initially and recognizing if you can get a 40 x 80 it'd be great and 35 x 65 isn't as big. But that is what we can get on. Manders: Well to the extent that you would make one of those 50 yards wide or to that feet yards. How would you accomplish that? Jeff Schoenbauer: Well I think the realistic place to try to do that is in here and that's all, this whole space is essentially tied together. As we get into finer design detail, this may actually shrink up...but we have to look at what all the needs are for these spaces as well so it's, we'll look to fine tune those things before we come back and see what we can put in there safely for everybody's sake. Manders: Alright. Lash: Ron. Roeser: No, I feel the same way Jim does. You can adjust those two small ones to 50 x 80, I think the plan is fine. No problem with it. Lash: Fred. Berg: I would agree. As long as you meet the concerns that were raised, and I know... I have no problem with that part. I guess my comments are more general, directed to both. I think it's going to have to be and understood, and it probably already is. We're never going to have enough fields. We can't put limitations at Bandimere and size limitations at City Center, we're never going to be able to come up with what we think is the perfect number. Have to worry about this seven years from now. I like the idea of the overlay at Bandimere simply because of the fact that we're getting some balance between the two. I think we've maximized the amount we can use for these activities plus still maintaining some sort of balance for the rest of the community that we have an obligation to. Jeff Schoenbauer: And I apologize to the gentleman, if he felt that I slighted him in any way as far as fields go. It was not my intent. I was just trying to find that balance so I apologize for that. Lash: Okay. I would agree with the earlier comments. You know being sensitive to the neighbors and as far as Jim's comments with the trees too, you know I love trees and parks are the place for trees and all of that but sometimes you know we need to be pretty careful how they're placed so they don't end up being some kind of maintenance nightmare or kids running out to catch a ball smack, you know running into a tree. That kind of stuff2 So when it comes to the actual landscaping, some of these trees, sometimes I think they're not always, I think of Bluff Creek as an example where they, what got put along Highway 5, apple trees or plum trees or something. You know it's a maintenance nightmare on the ground and you know so some of those kind of things I want to be kind of careful with where we place those and the kind of trees we put in. So we're not screwing up the use that we have. But otherwise I think you really did a 22 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 great job of utilizing the space. I like the layout a lot, and I like the flexibility down. That soccer field with the parking, and actually the open space up to the north end, I think when we're talking about wanting some balance for open space, picnic area. You've got that open space up in the north side and down on the south side where you have the ice in the winter. So I think you did a great job and I like those and I think that gives us some flexibility for the future if we need to expand things or whatever so. Jeff Schoenbauer: Okay. Well, we'll take those into consideration, your comments. Lash: Rod. Franks: I really don't have anything further to add. The only comment I have, I also share the concern about the trees in the central square area. Along the promenade area and I'm just wondering if, there's a way to switch those to the other side of the sidewalk. Jeff Schoenbauer: Yeah, and I think that's what we'll look at. We'll definitely look at this in more detail now that we're moving ahead and that is a good way to look at it and we'll do that for sure. Franks: The only other question I had was with the baseball field that's directly above the central square area. To be able to kind of invert that so the outfield is actually out towards the neighborhood area.., and decrease the number of participants that would be directly across. Jeff Schoenbauer: We can take a look at it. The down side of that is that we transfer the green space.., space inside the park. This particular backstop location relative to the property line, I'm personally very comfortable with. I do understand the need to look at this one again and try and pull this. If it works for you we'll get this out of here a little ways. Show more of a buff'er along this edge here. I tried to play that down. If that does not meet your expectations... Lash: Okay, I think that's a good, very good comment because also that's where the majority of the fans are going to be sitting and the teams and the cheering and all of that so. Jeff Schoenbauer: Right in here. Lash: Yeah. Right along. Jeff Schoenbauer: We'll take a look at that. Lash: So if that's farther from the homes it would be, it would cut down on the noise a little bit for the residents right there. Franks: That's all I had. Lash: Jane? 23 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Meger: I really don't have anything that hasn't been already said. Lash: Mike. Howe: I like the plans. I'd like the neighbor's concerns taken into account. I think Jeff will do that. I also want to say, I think we may slowly be losing sight of the fact that this is going to be about compromise. In a perfect world we'd build 15 soccer fields and 18 ballfields and we can't do that and that's the reality in Chanhassen in this day and age so we're going to try and find, that's our task and everybody's had great input, is to find the best combination ofballfields, soccer fields, community space, parking and if that means my kid some day plays soccer on a field that's halfa baseball diamond, then that's a reality. And maybe someday that will change but keep that in focus. Lash: Okay, is there a motion on City Center? Manders: Would it need to be included with the motion, since there's a lot of things that we've talked about on this particular park? Do we have to specify all those adjustments? Or can we say look at them. Go with those additions. Otherwise I'm fine with this. Lash: With the things, with the comments we just made regarding trees, the neighbors, possibly flipping a couple of those infields. Jeff Schoenbauer: Yeah, and I'll just mn through them very quickly. Moving the north field a little bit... Lash: I was thinking the other one too. Jeff Schoenbauer: This one here? Lash: The second one down and then the one that build, is right adjacent to it. Yeah. Yep, that one. Jeff Schoenbauer: ... I do think that we can maybe move it up here and once we do that, we'll see what we can do there to alleviate that as much as we can. Lash: So can we make a motion then based on those commission comments... ? Meger: I think we also talked about looking, the soccer field, making one 50 x 80 and then also.., to make sure that their concerns are taken care of. Manders: With those concerns I would move that we move forward with this proposal. Lash: Is there a second? Howe: Second. 24 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Manders moved, Howe seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission reconnnend approval of the City Center Park plan as proposed with the concerns noted by the commission and neighbors. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Lash: Let's move on to Bandimere. Jim, let's start with you again. Manders: A number of comments, and I guess I wrestled back and forth with quantity and quality and to my compromise, maybe you minimize some of the, or cut back at least on some of the quantity to attain some degree of quality. And if our effort is to put in ballfields and soccer fields and everything else without consideration for maybe the less active component of the community, you would have a different alignment but I am attempting to satisfy both so I think we do lose a bit of active use to attain some of those requirements. So actually personally I like this alignment. There's a few things as far as parking that I think have been addressed, particularly getting parking up towards the upper soccer fields. One question I have on the soccer field that was moved out. Was the purpose of that just to minimize the traffic on Kiowa? Jeff Schoenbauer: And I'm, in my mind I'm only suggesting that from a pro.., standpoint. From a practical standpoint, that is something that is really internal, whether or not you use that space for soccer, programmed soccer or not. As far as the development of the park site itself goes, it doesn't matter. So that is an issue that you can resolve internally once you see if these three soccer fields, once they're on line, meet the needs of the user group. And those pressures I'm sure will manifest themselves one way or the other. But from our perspective, we're not going to change the space in any way under this phase that will affect it's use. Lash: Is that it Jim? Manders: Yeah. Lash: Ron. Roeser: I guess I have a little problem with the single tennis court .... always tried to group our tennis courts. The loneliest place in the world when I go biking is an empty tennis court, single tennis court. They seem to me, and I know maybe people that live in that area say oh, we would use them. We use them. They don't. They just sit there and... The basketball court doesn't bother me. The tennis court I think is a waste. That's just my opinion. Jeff Schoenbauer: Well, if it's any consolation, it probably won't be built under this budget so. Lash: Yeah. Berg: I've said what I wanted to say before. Lash: I think I'll agree with a couple of the rest comments. I think this is a very nice plan and I think it's a nice compromise. Like Mike was getting at. We'd love to be able to have a whole 25 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 soccer complex and a whole Little League complex and everything all over and have community park with nice picnic shelters but you know we have to go with what we have and this particular site had a lot of constraints on it and I think you did a great job of getting in as much as you could and then maintaining some aesthetic qualities to this whole thing, because I think it was really a tough job and I think we were trying to be very sensitive and I think we are very sensitive to the residents who live there and I think that we put in as many quality facilities on here as we can without making it look like just a massive complex. And I think this is very nicely done. So I don't have, I have nothing that I would suggest and I think you did a great job. Franks: I don't have anything else to add. Meger: I would echo Jan's comments and I'm especially pleased with.., and the adding of some of the smaller amenities. For instance the idea of being a small shelter spot or resting spot down by the silo, along the trail I think is very nice and adding some of those smaller things. Lash: Mike. Howe: I would just again, I just mentioned it but the northern neighbors... Jeff Schoenbauer: Sure, and we'll do that. Lash: Okay, is there a motion regarding this plan? Howe: I move we accept this plan. Lash: Okay, is there a second? Meger: Second. Howe moved, Meger seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend to accept the plan for Bandimere Park. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Lash: Thanks to all the residents for your comments tonight. It's very helpful. 1998 TRAIL REFERENDUM PROJECTS. Lash: ... meeting and begin with the trail segment on Galpin Boulevard first and we'll start with a staff presentation. Hoffman: Thank you Chair Lash, members of the commission, members of the audience. Last Tuesday, January 20th, the Park and Recreation Commission tabled action on two sections of trails as a part of the 1998 trail project. Those being Galpin Boulevard and the Powers Boulevard trail. That evening, upon completion of staff presentation, extensive public comment and commission review, you took the following action. Regarding the Galpin Boulevard trail. It was tabled until this evening to allow additional information be gathered and presented to the commission and 26 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 public. The specific request of the commission included analysis of the following. In this handout, which I am reporting from, has been distributed to all of the commissioners and the audience as well. If you're in the audience and you do not have a copy, they're available at the table. And what we talked about that evening regarding Galpin was the staff recommend to delete the northern section of trail from Lake Lucy Road north in an effort to save costs and keep the project, the entire project, all six trail segments within budget at $1.24 million. In response to that, one of the directives was to look at in lieu of starting the trail near Highway 5 and progressing north to Lake Lucy Road, what would be the implications of starting the trail from the north, near the city limits, or Mayflower Drive and.., on a southerly construction route, perhaps to Long Acres Drive, the northern access to the Long Acres neighborhood. And again the note that I made in the report.., why that inquiry was made. The second directive was regarding the project budget for the Galpin Boulevard trail. What cost savings would be deleted by either, would be realized by deleting either that northern segment, which was recommended north of Lake Lucy. Or the south end, and that being south of Long Acres Drive. And then thirdly, what are the current and future implications of both those options. What would they in fact, today as a part of the project, and what would the short term and then long term future implications be of attempting to get those segments constructed if we passed them by today. Fourth item was what are the variables in both the east and west side alignments north of Lake Lucy Road. There was extensive public comment about looking at, if we go north of Lake Lucy Road, there was concerns about trees on the west side alignment. If we would construct the trail as originally proposed, which was off of the shoulder and out at the ditch line. And residents took a look at the east side in an attempt to assist the commission, staff and the City Council consultants, taking a look at another option. If we go on the east side, take out the hedge which is there today, and then they went so far as to seek signatures for granting of easements on that side. That was looked at and so, or that was discussed last Tuesday and the commission asked us to look at that in more detail for presentation this evening, which we have done. The commission also requested an analysis of tradeofl~ that would be encountered under either, any of these scenarios and presentation of funding alternatives. With that, I'm going to introduce Dave Nyberg who is with Howard R. Green Company. Howard R. Green has been retained to manage this project on behalf of the City Council and Dave will respond to these issues and then I would like to take a few minutes after that and talk to the budget, the overall project budget and talk about some recommendations.., to assist the commission and council in getting this project underway. Dave Nyberg: Chair Lash and commissioners. I can really start with almost anything tonight. We've got a lot of information in response to some of your requests from last week's meeting a week ago tonight. I could go through the letter first or we could get out the maps with some of the changes that we made, if you remember on Powers Boulevard there were some changes to the area through the townhomes with trees and such. Lash: Let's start with Galpin and can we have the map and the letters. Do the letter but use the maps so that we can see what you're talking about. Dave Nyberg: Sure. If you remember from the last meeting, we were talking quite a bit about what were we going to do north of Lake Lucy Road, and that's what one of these strip maps is of is that area north of Lake Lucy Road. It's a similar map to the one we used at the December 27 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 neighborhood meetings. We really haven't carried on with the design since that point but we still have those drawings and maps so I can get those out. This is the area on Galpin north of Lake Lucy Road. If I wide it down.., have Lake Lucy Road... this was our termination point that we discussed last week.., that included the trail ofl~et from the road.., northward. This Crestview Drive, Lakeview Drive... By the time we get in this area, we're very close to the edge of the road here. 5 feet between the trail and the edge of the road... And in response to your request from the last meeting, we prepared a letter that I handed out there with just the cost, some different cost summaries and alternatives. The first section of the letter talks about Galpin Boulevard and the three options that we considered. We clearly heard from the commission last week that you wanted both the east and west side studied so what we've come up with is three alternatives. That first proposed alignment of about $74,000.00 includes an alignment that's very similar to what you see here. It's a trail that's ofl~et from Galpin Boulevard, north of Lake Lucy Road on the west side, all the way to Mayflower. Lash: How far oflket? Dave Nyberg: Again, about 15 to 20 feet on the south end towards Lake Lucy Road, but by the time we get heading down the hill, towards Mayflower, we're very close to the existing road. There's maybe about 3 to 5 foot separation between the edge of the bituminous and the edge of the trail, but no curb. The next option considered was again the trail extending on the west side. However this...the edge of the existing pavement. We would construct curb along that edge of the road and put the trail right behind the curb. Almost giving it a more urban section look. And the last, that option by the way was $86,000.00 or so, or roughly about $12,000.00 higher than this option. And that may be confusing but the reason why that cost is higher is the curb and gutter, there's a cost for that. It's true that you have much less clearing and grubbing. However, with installation of that curb and gutter, you're going to catch stormwater in that curb. You have to have some kind of storm sewer collection system in the form of probably a few catch basins to route it somewhere. That's a whole nother, really a design that we haven't looked at yet, but we could certainly do that. And the last option we considered was an alternative on the east side of Galpin Boulevard, north of Lake Lucy Road. This is very similar to what we just discussed. A curb would be built on the east side, right off of the edge of the bituminous and then the 8 foot trail would be paved right behind that curb. And that cost is even more than on the west side, primarily because there is very expensive clearing and grubbing that would need to be done and the road drops off very steep in several areas from the edge of the road right now, and in a sense you'd have to build out that embankment even with putting the trail on, right on the side of the road. Lash: So these are just construction costs? You haven't taken.., easement costs? Dave Nyberg: Yeah, absolutely. And that's something important to consider. The least expensive option is obviously from a construction standpoint, is this preliminary design we've shown you. However, with that design you do have some significant easements you'd need to obtain. This area of Galpin Boulevard only has 33 feet of right-of-way. That's definitely not enough in most areas for a lot of the temporary easements you'd need to take for grading and the like to match in with the existing slopes. The other two options, at least on the west side anyway. 28 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Putting the trail right behind the curb. We'd probably still need some temporaries in a few areas but compared to the first option, it'd be much less. Berg: On the east side you've got the curb, you've got a constructed curb. Would you have to have a curb on that side? Dave Nyberg: The reason for the curb is to give some kind of barrier. It may sound crazy to call a curb a barrier belween cars and pedestrians but in effect that will hold a car on a street, if the car's traveling slow enough. Obviously people, from what residents have said, travel pretty quick on Galpin Boulevard but that does serve as a barrier that provides some protection. Typical bike trail guidelines like this recommend a trail ofl~et 10 feet from the edge of a curb, even on a road with curb and gutter. Obviously we can't do that but. Berg: So the reason you don't have a curb on the one option, on the west side is that you could ofl~et it far enough back that it wouldn't be needed? Dave Nyberg: You're ofl~et farther but you're still within that clear zone we've been talking about, but you are ofl~et farther than being on the edge of the road so. Berg: No curb on the east is not an option? Dave Nyberg: I really don't think it is. I think the only way to build it on the east side is to put it right along the road and thus we'd recommend you construct curb and gutter. You certainly wouldn't have to. We're really, we're bending the guidelines with any of these options because of the fight constraints. Berg: That curb look like, when you talk, it's about that high and just cement. Dave Nyberg: Yeah, 6 inches. 6 inches high. Vertical face. Lash: Is it cement or is it just a thing of blacktop? A curb of extra blacktop. Dave Nyberg: You could install bituminous curb. However we'd recommend a concrete curb design, at least a narrow gutter probably like 6 inches high, 12 inch gutter. And the reason for that is that there's a steep hill here and if you trap water along that bituminous curb and it's flowing down that hill towards a collection system, I really don't think that pavement is going to last through many winters unless you have concrete curb. Lash: And then we move on to, if we put it on the north end instead of the south end, how far we would get. Dave Nyberg: Yes, certainly. That's the next section that I'm discussing. If you remember from the last meeting we had a proposed cost of roughly $235,000.00 for Galpin Boulevard, from the south end connection to the existing trail on the east side of Galpin, extending north to Lake Lucy Road. So what we've done is we've tried to develop just some logical break points for the trail 29 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 along Galpin Boulevard, roughly we've divided it into four segments. A segment south of... North of Lake Lucy Road is one segment.., and then the last segment is the Long Acres Galpin connection point. The trail, this map actually shows the trail extending completely to Highway 5, but in reality there is... Lash: That green spot is the park, right? Dave Nyberg: Yes. Lash: And Brinker Street is where again? Dave Nyberg: Right here. And what we've found, when we break the costs out in those sections is that the area from Long Acres, the trail segment from Long Acres south to our termination point, which is about 2,200 feet, is roughly the same cost as the option we talked about before, the preliminary option of about $74,000.00 for extending the trail north of Lake Lucy Road. Ofl~et from Galpin Boulevard. So what that means is that if you were to start at Mayflower, you had that much money to allocate for this trail, you would get down to somewhere by that south entrance on Long Acres. I believe it's Hunter Drive. Lash: South entrance. Can you just point to that on the map? Dave Nyberg: Yeah. Lash: And Brinker is just on the other side of the park, right? Dave Nyberg: Yeah. Hunter Drive is on the north. Lash: And then how much distance is there from Brinker to where the existing trail is on the east side? Dave Nyberg: I would guess about 1,000 feet or so. Yeah, that's really what you're. Lash: That's what would be missing? Dave Nyberg: Yeah, if you say that if somebody gets to the north end of the park, you can get them through the park because you're building the park, yeah. I know what you're getting at. That's a good point. Yeah, and actually that, all along here we've been showing this project constructing the trail through the park area, and that is an area where it's not a real expensive cost but it is a cost that there probably is some overlap here belween your park dollars and this trail project so it's something to consider for the price there. Lash: And how much do we figure per foot? For construction. Did you say $40.00? Hoffman: About 34 estimated for the referendum. 30 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Lash: So if I'm doing my math right here we could, say we were to put the segment of the park during park construction. We could get from Brinker down to our existing stretch for about $35,000.00 extra. And we'd have the whole thing done. Dave Nyberg: To the park. Lash: No, with an extra $35,000.00, we'd get from Brinker. Dave Nyberg: Oh okay, yeah. Yeah although that's, there is an expensive part of that trail and it's through the Hennessy properly. There's a pretty large retaining wall we're proposing so you may, I think you'd see a little increased cost through that area, other than $35,000.00. Lash: Okay, and how much properly south of Brinker is coming in for development in the near? Hoffman: South? The Walnut Grove area is developed today. Lash: Okay, so I'm talking footage. About along Highway 5. And that could be, not do that within the trail fees, have that constructed down there. Hoffman: It's an approved subdivision without that. Lash: Already been approve? Hoffman: Yes. Lash: Okay. Berg: But with retaining wall we're talking, not $35,000.00 but. Dave Nyberg: I'd add about $8,000.00 for the retaining wall. Maybe closer to $45. And there are easement costs associated. That's just like areas north of Lake Lucy Road. These are only construction costs we're talking about and those easement costs are. Lash: Well we should have easements along there, should we not? Dave Nyberg: Some. The Hennessy properly we do not, we need a temporary from them to do some grading. We do have plenly of right-of-way through the development. Manders: What does that development cost from Longacres to the south? Walnut. Dave Nyberg: Walnut Grove, yeah. We have an easement through there and Longacres, there's plenly of right-of-way platted so. Hoffman: Plenly of right-of-way on this side to this point. 31 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Lash: Okay, is there anybody else with questions that we want to get answered before we open this up? Roeser: Have we completely forgotten about going to Highway 5 north? I mean the section past the old line. I guess I'm missing something here. I missed a couple meetings. Lash: No, we were just looking at, you know a lot of the people up on the north end with high population concentration there, wanted the segment extended up there so what we wanted to try and figure out was, would it be smarter for us, given a finite number of dollars, to start at the north and see how far south we could get. And then how we could add onto it in the future or come up with some other way of completing it. We're just trying to flip flop it to look to see if. Roeser: That doesn't sound very practical to me, I hate to say it, but you know we've got the trail coming right up to Highway 5 from the south now. Now you're going to leave a great big section of empty trail and then pick it up down by Longacres? There'd be nothing belween TH 5 and Longacres... Lash: TH 5 and Brinker, which is across from the Hennessy park.., and then it would come up from the park. I think we're not really talking about having any gaps. Ultimately what we'd like to do is just have... Roeser: Okay. I guess I just, I didn't realize that was going on, yeah. Lash: Jim, do you have anything that you need to find out? Fred? Anybody else? Okay. Before we open it up. One of the things I was looking at when you were talking about the northern section. The first option, which was the original plan. Could that just be modified somewhat, and I know we'd be going outside of the recommended guidelines but in some areas if we were to fudge closer to the road. Not be right up next to the road, you know what I mean? Just eliminating some tree loss. We're eliminating maybe some expensive easements or expensive retaining walls so this thing would be a straight shot but would have, kind of meander around a little bit more and in some areas be closer to eliminate some of those obstacles that we had. Dave Nyberg: Would you also want to eliminate curb? Lash: Yes. Dave Nyberg: So you'd kind of split the difference belween the lwo? Something like that. It may be possible. The problem with doing that is if you run in the middle of these lwo areas, where one we're pushing way out and one we're holding it in, you lose that ditch area that does trap water behind the trail. It's possible that you could try and grade that area in with almost an urban type section so that you'd have curb, a trail. Well, for the one option you'd have curb, a trail and then you'd almost fill in that ditch and get the water to run over everything into that curb. Much like many of your new city streets. Lash: No, but without the curb. 32 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Dave Nyberg: Yeah, without the curb you could do the same thing. Try and grade everything to drain into the street and then maybe trap it into some kind of a small swale. I mean drainage is the key. That's what I'm getting at. To just run a trail down the middle of the ditch, something's, the trail's got to get up higher. The ditch is now filled in and it creates some problems. It might be able to be done though. What's a key thing that's happened since our neighborhood meetings, I would guess some residents would likely ask tonight why wasn't this proposed before. A trail closer towards Galpin Boulevard to save easement costs and the like. What's happened since these December meetings is we've got a real good indication from the County, Carver County, that they will allow whatever the City desires on this trail segment provided that the City will continue to be in line to take over the road. And they have requested us, or the City to prepare to enter into an agreement with the County, to accept the road after the trail is complete. It's almost, it can almost be looked at as a city street that's going to have a trail on it. Lash: You don't have to go by county guidelines? We can use our own common sense of how we can best accomplish this with the least impact, least dollars but being somewhat safety conscience? Dave Nyberg: Yeah, in a sense. Yeah. The key, everybody wants to use the same guidelines. The State, counties, cities, but you are probably in a position to do this trail in the real world so to speak, better than the County would be because it would be in your city so. Hoffman: In the same breath, we will be subject to review by our city engineers and their comments as well. There are regulations, guidelines. We need to meet the city to keep these roads under State Aid guidelines... Dave Nyberg: Yeah, they may require, I mean your city staff may say if we want this road to be on the State Aid system someday, we really need that curb there to try and meet that guideline of having some form of barrier if the trail is 10 feet or less towards the road so. Howe: I'm getting ahead of myself here. The Commission is. I think if we're doing this, I missed last week's meeting, do the whole thing. You have money, you can do that. If that's the staff" s recommendation. Hoffman: Chair Lash ifI could speak to the memorandum regarding finances and budget. Does everybody have a copy of that? Again it's referring. Lash: This one? Hoffman: Correct, that one. The cost estimations again are based on an estimated high and estimated low cost for what we would classify as hard construction costs and those are listed second for each segment, Highway 7, Galpin Boulevard and so on. And then the other associated project costs that are.., project. Preliminary survey, project design, easement preparation, easement costs, project management, construction staking, legal fees, appraisals and project construction, total again in our best estimate, $657,000.00 on the high side and $390,000.00 on 33 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 the low, and that would assume, the low assumes easement costs which mn in accord with recent projects in the city. The high, an estimate based on a worse case scenario or a, we hope it will be a scenario for easement acquisition. We would hope that those wouldn't go any higher than that. I'm not going to go through the specific highs and lows for each segment. If you go right to the back page and talk about option 1, 2 and 3, that's for the north side. If you add the trail on Galpin north of Lake Lucy Road and those options were covered by Mr. Nyberg in his presentation. They include a high and a low with a staff recommendation to pursue the option 2 which is the west side alignment, at back of curb. So install a curb and install the trail for the most part, at the back of curb throughout the entire alignment. Some areas that will deviate. And then Powers Boulevard, when you add the north section of Powers Boulevard, which is north of Pleasant View Road, and for an additional cost, it's somewhere between $37,400.00 and $32,300.00. The Highway 101 trail, the Bluff Creek trail, Pioneer trail. Those totals including option 2, that northern segment of Galpin on the west side, and the Powers Boulevard addition, north of Pleasant View Road, total on a high side $1,728,400.00. On the low side $1,314,350.00. Those estimates which are outside or above the project budget of $1,240,000.00, so we have differences there ranging of somewhat slightly under a half a million dollars, down to about $75,000.00. And again, as I have spoke to earlier, it was certainly my intention as Director of the Parks and Recreation Department and as the secretary of the park task force and as the appointed department staff member to this board, to manage this project as presented in the hopes that we would accomplish all these projects. We did some careful cost estimations based on other projects and other feasibility studies which.., in this city and in other cities, but again we missed by again anywhere from $75,000.00 to $500,000.00, depending on the exact parameters of the project. However, we feel, or I feel, or as an avenue in light of these intensive lobbying that you are receiving to see the project through to it's entirety, that the commission can look at. You have alternate sources of revenue. One which we spoke to includes the million and 3¼ for land acquisition. Talked with the Council and with the Park and Recreation Commission about accessing that component of the referendum to bowl through this part of the referendum. The trail project. It was not met with favor and so we moved onto the second alternative which would be your fund reserve. Currently the commission has a general fund reserve of $300,000.00 which has a long history rooted in the fact that in the 70's and early 80's the City received many grants from the federal LAWCON programs. Land and water conservation. And other grant programs which were applied for on an annual basis and were never guaranteed to be awarded. However, if they were awarded, by and large they included a requirement that 50% local match needed to be made and so in order to be in the position to accept the grant, the City Park and Recreation Commission, the City Council, started setting aside money to bolster that reserve, to build that reserve. It started out at a very modest... $50,000.00 range, which $100,000.00, $200,000.00 and over the years, now you established that $300,000.00 in reserves. But the original intent of that reserve has kind of gone by the wayside. The federal grants are no longer the method of acquiring and developing park and trail systems. So it has sat there as a nest egg, as a fallback position and I think it's reasonable again to access, or to recommend that the City Council access that reserve to hopefully, you know $300,000.00 is short of the worse case scenario of just under $500,000.00, but again that's worse case scenario. Considering easement costs, which are normally high and then a not very competitive bidding climate and we would hope that that would not occur. So access that, to construct the project, as bid in it's entirety. Acquire all the easements and then over the next 3 to 5 years build that reserve back. The best way to explain it 34 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 is, as far as the ability to do that. The City will invest over $5 million in literally a single year in parks and trails and open space in this community. That will allow the commission the elbow room to use that money in future years to build back your reserve. Right now your annual cash flow of park and trail dedication fees hovers around $300,000.00 or a little better. In a slow year it edges back to $250,000.00. This past year it was over $350,000.00. You can certainly find the means to bankroll, even $150,000.00 of that on an annual basis to build that reserve back up. Due to the fact that you have just completed 18 neighborhood park improvements, trails, community trails totaling 7 miles. Construction two community parks. You will have the ability to build that reserve back. So again that is my recommendation for you this evening and how you would like to take audience reaction to that I'll leave up to you. Lash: Quick question. Why are you recommending the west side, curb side? Hoffman: The cost, and I think the overall alignment on the outside of the curb is a better alignment for sight lines and the cost is lower. Lash: Than the east side? Hoffman: Correct. Lash: But it's more than with the setback? Hoffman: Yeah, with the setback we're back to cutting down trees which... Lash: And then also, I haven't heard a strong lobby for the Powers segment north of Pleasant View. Have any of you? Hoffman: One call from a resident who.., nearly in tears but was just waiting for this trail to come up north to their residence so they could get down south and so yeah, to answer your question. There's not a substantial lobby. It's a more isolated area but again in fairness, if we're adding back the Galpin north piece. Roeser: It's the worse part to ride if you ride to Excelsior. Along that guardrail and. Berg: ... hook us up to Pleasant View up. Hoffman: It goes beyond Pleasant View. Lash: Well it was going to go to Pleasant View anyway. Hoffman: To Holly Lane, and there are a number of houses off of Holly Lane which would enjoy that access. Lash: But then it dead ends? I mean does Shorewood ever have a plan of... ? 35 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Hoffman: ... contemplate they do but I don't know when that would be. Lash: Okay. Are there other commissioner comments or questions for staff'? I guess I'll open this for public comment but I'd like to just have some guidelines. I mean the first one obviously is that you come to the podium and state your name so we know, so we have some kind of orderly fashion here. The other one is, I think you can tell from what we've said tonight and what staff has said tonight, you know we really heard your comments and your concerns last week and we're trying to do, we want to do what you want to have happen. You know so we don't really need to hear you know that you want the trail. You know we already heard that part so, just because we have to go onto Powers and it's already 9:30 okay. John Hennessy: My name's John Hennessy, 7305 Galpin. I'm on the south end of the trail proposed on Galpin. It seemed to me to make some sense, since we have the Bluff Creek school down there and trails going across there, and ending with my southern properly line, that we continue the trail that way first. I'd like to see the entire trail of course but it doesn't make sense to have fragmented pieces of trail that don't connect to anything. It makes a lot of sense to start and continue trails and then as we have the money, continue. As we get to the top, I think it's Melody Hill, Murray Hill area, before it goes down the big hill. I'm having a hard time understanding why we want to take that trail all the way down that dangerous road. That's a hazard for cars much less people going up and down that hill. It seems to me the back side of the hill is a much safer way to travel if we're going to put any kind of trail system, rather than taking them down that dead mans curve as several residents refer to it as. Lash: Can you point out the area you're talking about on the map there? John Hennessy: ...if you've been down there. Lash: Well, I've been down there but I don't know... You think it should go where? John Hennessy: Well if anything... Lash: Dave, do you have any response to that? Dave Nyberg: You could certainly do what Mr. Hennessy is saying. I'm not that familiar with the road that leaves Galpin there but I know some of those residents have talked to me about this trail being deleted or what have you but part of the trail that would be extended, if we do go all the way to Mayflower, is in the City of Shorewood. And there may not be, if the true use of this trail is to bring people down to the future Highway 5 trail and eventually into the downtown area, if that's going to be the flow and it's for your residents, than the value of that trail north to Mayflower is minimal probably. Lash: So where would you end it then? Dave Nyberg: Is that Hummingbird? 36 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Hoffman: Or Pheasant Drive. Dave Nyberg: On the west side. It's Pheasant? Hoffman: No, Hummingbird is on the west side. Dave Nyberg: Yeah that's, Hummingbird's on the west side. That's what I thought. (There was a tape change at this point in the discussion.) Hoffman: ... but I think prudent to allow the option to go down the hill at least at Pheasant Hill and then to consider a potential terminus at that point at Pheasant Hill, instead of going all the way to up north to Mayflower. Lash: Like how far is that? Hoffman: From Pheasant Hill to Mayflower? Oh, 800 feet. 600 feet... Maureen Farrell: Hello. My name is Maureen Farrell and I'm a resident of Chanhassen in the Longacres development and I'm also quite involved with what I would consider assets in our community for youth. And one of the things that I agree with what Ron said and also this other comment. To me it seems kind of obvious not to have these fragmented pieces. I believe the city has kind of created a hub, not only with the elementary school but they have created their recreation center just across TH 5 with Galpin also. So you have the natural area where youth would be trying to get to and it appears that we're trying to expand those programs each year so I would see the volume going steadily increasing. I think it's very important to develop that south end piece. I'm not saying to take away from pieces up north but I really see, you have three very soon high density developments that will be almost at that comer, and to have this phase, for those of you who may not drive that road every day as I do several times a day, as the segment that comes up from TH 5 leaves and just goes out into the road, you would have a part that goes up and then you have almost like a blind turn with a hill and it's very narrow and if there's any type of winter. I mean as winter comes, I'm not saying that this trail's going to be open through the winter, but that road is not known for having wide shoulders or areas for kids to go. And I just see it very vital on having that whole segment done as soon as possible. Thank you. Lash: I think that's the direction that we're all you know hoping to accomplish so. Rick O'Connor: I'm Rick O'Connor. My property is the last property in Carver County. Right by dead mans curve. Mr. Hennessy's remarks regarding safety of the trail and his reasons for not having it there is exactly our reasons for having it there. Safety is our main concern and right now people are using the road as a pedestrian way. There isn't even 6 inches of anything to walk on so it's a tremendous safety concern right now so our concerns are, access to the trail not for convenience sake but definitely for safety. And even though I am the only resident that would access the trail from Pheasant on down to Mayflower, there is a tremendous volume of traffic, pedestrian traffic that does use the road along there so there is a definite, how to go to Excelsior 37 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 along that way and a lot of people use it so, you know we want to throw our hat in the ring for safety and we want to see the trail extend all the way north to Mayflower so, thanks. Benno Sand: Good evening. I'd like to echo, my name is Benno Sand and I live at 1910 Moline Circle which is about lwo houses up from O'Connor's residence as well. And I guess last week, you know we delivered the petitions from the neighbors in the Pheasant Hill area, and we're pleased to hear that the commission would like to extend the trail all the way to Mayflower. I still would like to appeal to the commission to consider putting it on the east side of Galpin from a safety standpoint. I think people coming down Pheasant that would have to cross over at the bottom of dead mans curve, it's going to be very dangerous and I still believe it would be safer for residents to be crossing from the Melody Hill area at the top of the crest of the hill as opposed to crossing at the bottom of that curve. A further comment, you know with respect to the cost of taking out the buckthom berm that's in there. I think that would actually improve the safety aspects of that road because you would have a better sight line for not only pedestrians that are accessing the trail, but also for automobiles that are entering onto Galpin Lake Boulevard from Pheasant. Looking up the hill, they'd have a much better sight line if that buckthom berm was out of there. So I guess I would again ask the commission to consider, even though it's a little more expensive, to locate the north end of the trail segment on the east side of Galpin Lake Boulevard. Thank you. David Struyk: Hi. My name is David Struyk. I'm at 1941 Crestview Circle. I am also on the northern part of Galpin Lake Road. And just response to a couple comments and some questions. Some of the comments regarding that there's, well why would we mn the trail there? You know no one lives there beyond the last house in Carver County there. There is a fairly high density of people that do live in that area, and they do use the hill there extensively to get into Excelsior, and I realize this is not the city of Excelsior, but there are a tremendous number of Chanhassen residents that do use that to get to Excelsior because that is closer to us than downtown Chanhassen. It's going to be used regardless of whether there's a trail or not. So it is primarily a safety issue. The one question that I, or another comment, which I guess goes to Todd and Dave. I think they've done an outstanding job and I appreciate their recommendations and the cost issues I don't think were as great as any of us thought they were going to be. And the last question I have is, has there been any sort of comprehensive plan to tie in this trail system to other cities? You know we're next to Shorewood. We're next to Excelsior. We're next to Chaska, or whatever. I really don't know all the surrounding cities. But it seems to make a lot of sense to have a comprehensive plan that would involve many cities. I heard Todd say that he couldn't contemplate what Shorewood was going to do but it seems to me that would be an obvious question. As a committee, why are we not working with the other cities to lay out a comprehensive trail plan so we do not have dead ends. It just seems to be kind of an obvious issue. So I don't care if you want to respond to that now or later. Hoffman: Yes, I certainly would. My comment regarding Shorewood is more of a response to how advance they are in their trail system. They simply do not have a trail system in place in the city of Shorewood. Now when we speak to Chaska, the city of Eden Prairie. Our comprehensive plan certainly does address connection points at all comers of our community. It speaks to those. We've talked to those other communities. I certainly have had conversations with the City of 38 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Shorewood and as the plan indicates, we're starting to point all these things out in all sorts of different directions. In the future, we have an existing connection with Eden Prairie. Future connection with Chaska are coming on line and as we move out to Shorewood, I really don't foresee, you know it's a cities without curbs and just literally any city street they are not very advanced in their trail system and I see that, I would.., that the residents would have to leave Chanhassen and then find their way on city streets in Shorewood. Roeser: We're very well connected with Eden Prairie's trails. All the way across. Lash: And Victoria too. David Struyk: ... right-of-way. Hoffman: The LRT trail. Yeah. Really two ways to access it. The best way is to go to downtown Excelsior and then get on the LRT. The other route would be to, wind your way, well I can just point it out. By taking Melody Hill to Murray Hill and then coming back on Chaska Road. Cross over TH 41 at that location and access a small trail behind.., continue on internal streets down to Orchard and then eventually to Washta Bay Road where you could take the Highway 7 trail which will also be constructed out to an alternative crossing point which would be Church Road. Cross Highway 7 and then you can get onto the trail... Yes, but you will be on the new trail in the ditch line of Highway 7. Cross at this point to access the LRT trail. In the future Hennepin Parks would like to build an overpass here, a bridge overpass. At that point it would be a nice amenity.., down to the overpass which will be where it crosses Highway 7. So you really have two alternatives. I lived in the city of Victoria for a number of years and biked to work and that was, those were my only two options. Either go all the way to Excelsior, down Powers Boulevard or try to make this cut through which was not very pleasant... Highway 7 corridor but with this trail... Lash: And that's one of the new ones we're putting in under this referendum. Hoffman: Right. David Struyk: So you can certainly take the Galpin Lake all the way across... Hoffman: It would cross TH 7... Lash: I have a question for Dave regarding the east side. You know with the buckthom and all of that. Do you look at one side or the other as being you know aesthetically more pleasing and more safe as far as getting off the road? If we do it on the east side, before they're off the road and it would be a little bit better experience or do you think it's the same, going to be the same on either side? You said you had some steep drop oflk on the east side to contend with. Dave Nyberg: I should have that park guy here to talk about aesthetics and appearance. I'm probably not the best one to comment on that. But what we really look at there is the difficulty of building that trail on the east side. Mr. Sand indicated last Tuesday, I think he had a petition of 39 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 some people that would give an easement but the way that drops off in some areas, you'd need an extensive easement to bring your embankment down into those yards. There's a house there. I'm not sure who's house it is but it's very close to the road. There's utility poles all along that side that are very close to the road. There's just some, you get down towards Mayflower and we have that wetland to contend with that's quite extensive. Very close to the road. We need to fill in a considerable portion of that. There's just many issues that would make me recommend to you to leave it on the west side. At least from the preliminary plan. JoAnn Nefl2 Hi. My name's JoAnn Neflk I live on Majestic Way and that's the southern part of Galpin and I just want to reiterate that I think all of us that live off of Galpin have no place to go. We're really isolated and to fragment it would really be a horrible thing because I don't think it's, even a pleasurable thing for us. We use the road right now. So whatever you do, it should be done for safety. Everybody else in town has something. I mean we're sort off we're going to be disconnected because of size until Arboretum goes all the way through into, what is the new development going in there? Walnut Grove. And Longacres, I mean we're going to be putting in the park across from Brinker so it'd be silly, and the school is there so it's silly not to have access for everybody there. And we really, I mean there's just no place to go so I think, whatever you do, you should do it for safety issues and just to give everybody a way to get out, whether it's to get us downtown or not, but we really have no place to go. Everybody's on cul-de-sacs and I mean there's a lot of kids out there. So thanks. Bonnie Mahelko: Hi, my name is Bonnie Mahelko. I live on the comer of Brinker and Galpin and I guess I also wanted to talk about the fragmented, but I don't need to say anything. But my question is, because there's a lot of runners and I used to mn a lot and I had a 3 mile path and it seems like people like to mn, not necessarily past the same point all the time. Running back and forth and back and forth, and there are people that just mn around our cul-de-sac but I was wondering if we can somehow connect the trails more within our own city so that people can mn a 3 mile trail and mn around in a circle. You know go down Galpin and cruise down Lake Lucy and then come back down Powers. You know so there's somehow a 2 or 3 mile trail that people can actually access so I'm not sure if you guys think about that but that might be a thought. And also I wanted to state that I'm really hoping that you're not going to go with like a blacktop curb north on dead mans curve or whatever because I have been in an area where they put in a curb system where it's all like asphalt and it broke away and it looked like a nightmare. I mean people would look at it and say, boy. They don't keep up their roads and it just looked really tacky so I hope that you would go with a nice concrete curb and for safety purposes to keep the cars away from the people so. Lash: I think that's what Dave was saying, and that's the whole point of a trail is to make these connections. So you could do a loop. You know you can go down Lake Lucy. Go down Powers to TH 5 and TH 5 to Galpin and that's your, I don't know how many miles it is but. Bonnie Mahelko: Yeah. Lash: Make those connection points and that's our whole point here for doing this. 40 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Bonnie Mahelko: Okay. Sounds great. Alright, thanks. Lash: Thanks. Anybody else? Sam Mancino: Hi. I'm Sam Mancino from 6620 Galpin Boulevard and we live sort of, just north of Lake Lucy Road on the west side and a couple of years ago my wife was actually a co-chair on the park and rec task force that tried to get the referendum passed and in a way, from my point of view, it's like no good deed goes unpunished because the first that we knew about where the trail was going to go was when we woke up and found stakes right through the middle of our arborvitae trees that go about 600 feet there on Galpin. So we're concerned. I'm concerned about the loss of the trees. I'm not concerned that they should be or shouldn't be a trail there. I think the trail's a good idea but I am passionate about wanting to preserve the integrity of the trees because they're a landmark feature of the area and they're older than I am, which is getting up there now. So I'd like to see the commission be able to help direct whoever has to advance this, to do whatever we can to minimize that impact. One of the things you've talked about so far is moving it right to curb side, which is I think a very good idea. I'd also like to explore options making it narrow, as narrow as humanly possible. As close a setback as possible. Also perhaps be able to get some kind of provision so that during the construction we're not having Bobcats running over the root systems and killing the trees which is always a big danger with those kinds of trees and they have extended root systems. There's also some grading that as you bring that ditch up to level, you change the grading and the drainage to those trees that I'd like to see carefully considered. Because so long as the trees are preserved, I'm very much in favor of this. But to the extent that the trees become that risk through some process here, I'd really not like to go forward with it ....Okay, thank you. Great, well I'd appreciate everything you can do. Alright, thank you. Lash: Thanks. Anybody else? Jim Ronning: Good evening. I'm Jim Ronning. I live at 6640 Galpin and that's on the west side of Galpin. We're sharing pretty much, the same driveway as the Mancino's. I would like to just reiterate the fact that I would like you to take every step you can to try to preserve the arborvitae trees there. Also, I would just like to suggest one thing about the east versus west. When I ride my bike down the hill, down towards dead mans curve, I always ride on the right side of the road because you really pick up speed going down there. And it's almost suicidal to ride on the left side, opposing traffic. And I think that you should investigate the possibility of doing a cross over at one of the peaks in the grade there where the visibility would be good, not only for traffic to observe the pedestrians and bikers, but for the pedestrians and bikers to see the traffic. And it seems like the west side alignment is the best on the southern part of the northern route, and it seems to me that the east side alignment would be better on the north part. I think you should consider a cross over because most of the users on the north part are going to be crossing over to the west side of the road anyway and if you give them a place to cross over with better vantage points, I think would be in the interest of public safety. Thank you. Lash: But isn't that where the wetland is? On the, at the end of the east side. 41 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Jim Ronning: It's at the bottom of the hill though. Hoffman: The large wetland is right... Lash: But isn't that where you're saying that you think we should be on the east side? At the end? But that's where the wetland is. Jim Ronning: Going down the hill he thinks we should be on the east. Yeah, and that wetland is at the bottom, yeah. Resident: I have one question. If it's a curb side.., or combination of both? Because one safety.., on my property it's technically wetlands that it would be sitting on because the grade of the road had already been.., possibility of keeping a curb side plan on the east side... Dave Nyberg: So would the trail then be on the east side all the way to Lake Lucy, but you'd move it out and in? Resident: ... drop offthat you're referring to as so expensive. Dave Nyberg: Okay. Put that on the curb and then move it out later? ... yeah, the commission can consider that option but again, any option we do on the east side is going to be considerably more expensive than the west side. Yeah, safety, you know I can't argue with these residents that if they're going to cross Galpin, they have to cross if the trail's on the west side somewhere .... Yeah, but we could, you know maybe some kind of compromise could be, put striping another crossing at one of these intersections farther down the, or to the north or the hill to get people across in a common spot to the trail if it is on the west side. And then leave the trail on the west side because it would be cheaper to build there. Again, that's something that we have to talk to the city, or your own public works and engineering staflk They would have to approve that and we can work with them on that. Any crossing on that hill is going to be dangerous. I wouldn't argue with these people at all on that. It's a very dangerous hill .... yeah it would. Anybody living on the east side, to cross the road to use it on the west, it's not desirable but we'd at least get the trail built and down that way to the north. Manders: What component of having it on the east side makes it so much more expensive than the west side? Dave Nyberg: It's a lot of the clearing. Clearing and grubbing. The earthwork to build that platform if you will, for the trail. The power poles could become an issue. NSP has told us that they will move poles slightly one way or another to accommodate the trail on a segment such as Powers. On something like Galpin there, what we're talking about is a major moving, maybe 10 feet one way or actually it would have to be back because there really isn't any room to move it closer to the road. They may charge a fee to do that. We haven't discussed that with them so. Even the residents that say we can take those trees. That certainly helps. We wouldn't have to compensate them for those removals if they would agree to that but there is still a cost to taking those down. 42 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Hoffman: There'd likely be some retaining walls and fencing on that side as well. For those in the audience who can visualize, if you drive down there, the alignment on the west is very visual. It's there. You see if the alignment on the east is a severe drop ofl~ It will take a good deal of, I'm not sure if the resident who lives in that house but there's a home there in the east side which you open a door and it will about open up onto the trail. So there is that concern if that resident is not here this evening. But I think if you would like, this area has not been studied.., that could then be reported back at the Planning Commission or City Council for further review. Jim Ronning: I think I need to see it myself. I drive that road a lot and some of the details you're, I'm aware of but I need to see it more closely. I'd like to go out there is what I'm saying. I think we need to do that. Resident: Is it necessary to make that decision, as to what side of the road... Resident: ..budget issues. The recommended plan...is $86,000.00. The east side is $95,000.00. $9,000.00 on a million and a half dollar project, that's irrelevant.., make the decision that you're going to either extend the trail or not extend the trail. And work that one out... Lash: Jim, did you have something else you wanted to add? Jim Ronning: For about 13 and 14 years, 15 years, whatever I've been driving what's, I never knew it was dead mans curve and the right side of the road as you're going up the hill, which is the west side where the trail would be, a perennial problem. It has, I've and the County working on that maybe 2 to 3 times a year. Every year. Patching it. Putting gravel down. Regrading it. Having it blown out with the water. They're there all the time. There are springs in there so I don't know if your costs take into account doing a permanent fix on that because that's a pretty substantial problem that the County's been unable to fix. When you think about the cost of that right hand, western alignment, you might want to look at that. Lash: Any other burning comments or can we move on? Okay. Let's close the public comments on Galpin. Take commissioner comments and then we'll be looking for a recommendation on this. Jim. Manders: Personally I'm in favor of extending the trail all the way to Mayflower. And the cost issue I would, I guess I'm not going to sweat whether it's a cost issue with east side versus the west side. It just seems to me based on other discussions that we've had, that we put the trail on the side of the road that's going to pull in most of the use and to me that, how far we go on the east side, I guess there is a concern putting it along there. I'm not sure where that turn over point to the west side would be but given that it could be worked out, I'd go all the way up to Lake Lucy. Go to the west side at that point but I don't know if that can be arranged so I guess that's my concern and that we do go all the way to TH 5 and do the entire segment. Lash: Okay, Ron. 43 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Roeser: Yeah, mine is the same. I think we committed ourselves with the referendum to do this trail and I think it should go from... Berg: Well Todd, says we can make it up... Lash: Okay, Fred. Berg: Well I'm certainly not going to disagree. It just makes all the sense in the world if we can possibly afford it, to do it the whole way. I'm a little bit concerned if we go much over the $74,000.00 bottom line. We don't have enough to fund it if it's anywhere near the top of the scale. That concerns me a little bit that we could possibly be building false hopes here on one other so I guess we have to get a handle on that. Obviously you're going.., that's the part that concerns me the most. Lash: I would agree with that point, and however I would make the Galpin extension to complete the whole project my first priority. And so it looks like we're getting into the $488,000.00 range, then I'd be more likely to want to cut back on the Powers one back to Pleasant View if we need to make a cut. And I'd be interested in, you know the point of putting this up in that area is for safety and so if it means an extra $9,000.00, I really would want staff and Dave to look at the east side and with all of the different issues involved, look at what would be, make for the safest route for those residents on the east side of Galpin. That's where the population is, and should they be crossing at the top of the hill or the bottom of the hill or dead mans curve or Lake Lucy Road, or wherever. I'm not that familiar with it, but you guys if you study it will be able to tell from the sight lines where the safest spot is to cross. And then work within that I think it should be driven by the safest crossing. Yeah we have to work around some of these other kinds of things but, you know and it may be, if you look at the top end of option 1 and the low end of option 2, it's only a difference of... hundred dollars and if we can get cooperation in easements from the people on the east side, you know there.., it's a horse apiece as far as money between east and west sides so I'm looking at safety as my main motivation and if it's safer to keep it on the east side, I would be interested in doing that with the crossing at a place where there's the best sight lines. And I'm not... Hoffman: Clarify an assumption I think we all can make. If it goes on the west side, it's going to be on the west side of Lake Lucy to the end and the east side will be from Lake Lucy to the end. I would not advocate an additional crossing in that segment. Lash: Rod. Franks: We're already talking about taking money out of the.., extend the trail to where I'm thinking it needs to go. I think going into our reserve here and then spend more time on study which means more money and pushing things out further, it's been my experience it's just going to push.., and we're already talking about going.., and so I am concerned that the commission act on... but I do, I would like to say again that I would like to approve the trail.., in it's entirety and then do a little bit more.., west side with some of this new information but I guess I'm 44 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 understanding that the decision is going to be made.., and I'd just like the commission to keep that in mind also. Meger: There's always nothing left when it gets down here. I guess I would echo everyone's thoughts. Safety is the big concern for me as well. I'm definitely in favor of this being a trail along a constructed curb, a concrete curb. Definitely one of the reasons for that is to do things like safe some of these trees and I'd like as well and I think having a curb, I would.., a big plus in comparison to some of them that I've ridden on before. I think that.., so that's about all I have. Lash: Mike. Howe: I say build it. We've come this far. Do it. The reserve is fine for this use. I worry that we really know how much over we're going to be and then we're.., but I think it has to be dealt with. Including studies from the staff on which side. Lash: And we'll be getting this...right Todd? The bids we'll know exactly where we're at and if we need to cut something back, we can. Even if we've let... Hoffman: Right. As the numbers get closer, we'll add in some, add alternates throughout... Lash: Okay. Is there a motion for Galpin? Berg: I move we recommend the City Council utilize park and trail acquisition and development reserves to cover the cost for Galpin Boulevard trail north of Lake Lucy Road in conjunction with the remainder of these trails, which means specifically for Galpin only to Highway 5. Roeser: Second. Berg moved, Roeser seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommend that the City Council utilize park and trail acquisition and development reserves to cover the cost of the Galpin Boulevard trail north of Lake Lucy Road in conjunction with the remainder of the trails. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Lash: ... what are we going to do with the east/west thing? Berg: I assume you're going to come back and tell us about east/west. Hoffman: I'll tell you about it but by the time you would have another scheduled meeting, the decision would be made. Lash: So it's going to go onto City Council? Hoffman: I'll send you copies of it when it goes to Planning Commission and City Council. 45 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Lash: Thanks, for all your comments. Okay, let's move on to Powers and look at the staff recommendations for Powers .... the east west issue come back to us before it goes to City Council. Hoffman: And you'd like to schedule a meeting to do that. Roeser: Just call us and have us... Franks: Is that what we want to do because it seems to me, if we're having discussion that the City Council's going to make the decision without any recommendation from us... Manders: I mean where does... Howe: This body recommends right? Roeser: Well I just want to make sure that as a body we're doing what it is that we are.., and that came kind of quick for me and I wasn't.., is that what we're choosing to do. Meger: I would agree. I would like to see it come back only because I would hate to see another Greenwood Shores type issue. Berg: ... special session maybe and do it, rather than wait for our next meeting. Lash: When does this go to City Council? Hoffman: February 9th, I believe. Next Tuesday. Lash: I can't next Tuesday. I can only have two other... You guys can do it without me. Hoffman: You could combine that with the first Wednesday of February and meet just before the Planning Commission. Lash: Well how about just before the City Council? But it has to go to Planning first. Howe: It goes to Planning first, right? Hoffman: Yep. I think it's February 3rd and they meet at 7:00. You could meet at 6:00. Is that alright Rod? Lash: Next Wednesday... before it goes to the Planning Commission. Franks: Okay .... I didn't mean to push that... Lash: ... very good point ....okay, let's move on to Powers. 46 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Hoffman: Thank you Chair Lash, members of the commission. Powers Boulevard was also tabled last week and the issue of contention on this segment was the proximity of the proposed alignment to mainly Chaparral townhomes and then some properties to the north as well. Specifically what the commission asked is can a guardrail be installed in collected areas, south of Kerber Boulevard and north of Butte Court, allowing the trail to be constructed closer to the road. You will note, or Dave will note that he also looked at the construction or guardrail along a more encompassing segment of the road. Second, to reduce the encroachment on the dwellings in this area, the trail be less than 8 feet in width. And if this is the case, could the trail still be cleared for winter use or would it have to be closed during the winter. Dave will respond to those two issues. I think I'll include my recommendation at this time. Dave and I talked throughout last week and really today, the entire day to bring you these recommendations. But it would be again my recommendation, due to fairness, to keep the Powers Boulevard trail intact in it's entirety. Go north of Pleasant View to Holly Lane. In addition, that we attempt and move the trail outside of the private lots in the location of the Chaparral townhomes, and when I described that, it would be north of the, we've already moved it out in the area of the trees, and then at least this plan calls for the trail to come back down and more or less straddle the property line from an area north of those large trees to Kerber Boulevard. You have the costs, or Dave will present the costs for a guardrail in that area. Again the County, aesthetically, maintenance, for a variety of issues, snow removal, summer mowing, just they are not comfortable with it. Our city engineers and city management is not comfortable with just artificially placing a barrier on Powers Boulevard to allow a trail to move out of the ditch section and up along side the road. So what we would propose as a compromise, to move that trail out and beyond the property line. The fence in some areas is already outside the property line. They're in the right-of-way by a foot. 2 feet, 3 feet, approximately in those type of ranges. We would move that fence back onto the property line and then propose to the county that the trail would be constructed just outside of that and await their response. Again, there are no guarantees that they will accept that and that we'll certainly, that proposal would certainly be a point of negotiation in what appears to be a more formalized agreement with the county. Instead of simply signing off on a permit for these projects, they have indicated to us that they would like to sit down and hammer out an agreement with more specifics and so again we can talk about that in the future. But in short that's our recommendation. I would like Dave just to touch on specific numbers which he put together per your directive. Dave Nyberg: Thank you Todd. Chair Lash and commissioners. I can talk about the drawing and some of the confusion from last week with the trees on several properties, or I can talk about the cost in the letter, whichever you prefer that I do first. Berg: Trees. Dave Nyberg: Okay. We start down by Butte Court. There were several trees missing... corrected that over low trees and.., segment dropping back out.., have that transition by the Pettinger property. Now I've changed that to show the transition south of the Pettinger property so that we save.., south of Kerber Boulevard there's several lots here that do have trees along this.., of the proposed trail and at the last meeting I indicated that I thought that was probably the case.., shown here are well outside the... Obviously we had a limit of how far we... 47 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Lash: Because they would not be impacted. Dave Nyberg: Exactly. Lash: Okay. Audience:... Dave Nyberg: People that are familiar with the area... Lash: So overall what we've done is moved it closer to the road. In places where we can because of privacy and we've saved a couple different groups of trees. Dave Nyberg: Yeah, in a sense. I mean the trees really, we weren't proposing to take them out anyway but we verified that they are protected. And they'll just be more protected now by moving the trail out. Berg: How close is the trail to the road now? Dave Nyberg: Well through this area, the trail, if you can compare that with this segment, you can see... This trail does meet the 30 foot requirement of the County... about 10 feet maybe to the west, closer to Powers Boulevard. Lash: 20 feet off the road. Dave Nyberg: Absolutely, yep. Yeah, you're 20 feet from the edge of the driving lane. It's closer to the edge of the bituminous. There's a four foot shoulder on Powers. It may look closer but go by the edge of the driving lane, not the edge of the pavement. Lash: So we're not going, we're saving the berm. We're saving the fences exactly in the same position except for it's out of the right-of-way where it is, and in some places it's in the right-of- way now by a foot. Dave Nyberg: Yeah, there's. Lash: All the evergreens and stuff along there. Dave Nyberg: Yeah, we were never intending to move any of those or remove any of those evergreens that are there. That evergreen row. We do have a couple trees that we may have to remove that are in the right-of-way or right on the line. There's a tree right by the power pole. If the pole gets moved now, we'd probably have to move that tree. Or cut the tree down so. Lash: What about right on the comer of Chaparral and Powers? There was a concern from the residents that there was a fence already, and I looked at that the other day myself to where the 48 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 fence already kind of angles towards her home. Is there a way that we can then keep the trail outside of that fence as it is? Dave Nyberg: I think it's possible. Yeah, the fence is quite a ways into her properly actually and it was built that way to keep it out of that large low area. Hole. That collects runoff there. I would say it's about, at the end of the fence anyway it's probably 35 feet or so into her properly. And there are a few places where the fence, as you come out of those pine trees, it tends to have some more sharper comers. It's still rather linear but those comers there, if we have to do some minor grading, we may have to take a post down. Move it back a foot. Put the new rails in. Lash: You wouldn't be going any closer into her yard than what's already there? Dave Nyberg: No. No. Hoffman: It appears that the fence will remain in it's existing location in that segment. Dave Nyberg: Yep. Lash: Okay. Any commissioner questions or comments quick before we open it? Okay, we can open this up for public comments, if you have. Dave Nyberg: Would you like me to comment on the cost and letter before we do that? On the guardrail or, okay. The commission has in front of them just a letter from, it's the same letter we were talking about on Galpin where I just briefly summarized the costs for the guardrail options that you requested at the last meeting. For the guardrail along the townhome areas, the area we just looked at beiween Butte Court and Kerber Boulevard. There's an increase in cost of approximately $24,000.00. And for the segment, or the trail with guardrail along the entire length, it's an increase in cost of approximately $96,000.00 or so. Manders: When you say the entire length, what does that entail? From Kerber to Butte? Dave Nyberg: The entire length of the project. All the way from Saddlebrook, all the way up to Pleasant View. And the iwo paragraphs after those cost estimates indicate just some general information about how the section of the trail would be. The trail would, for that estimate is proposed, the guardrail excuse me, is proposed iwo feet off of the pavement edge. The trail would be 2 feet behind the guardrail so the guardrail would provide protection for pedestrians. But that last paragraph is very important. I talked to the County this morning about, actually this afternoon about this issue. I've been talking to Bill quite a bit on this project and I just asked him how he felt about that. They would be very opposed to that and I don't think I would recommend you do that option either. I think a guardrail, just the sight ofa guardrail there would really disrupt the visual appearance of that area, not to mention a real maintenance problem for mowing and snowplowing. Lash: Okay, thanks Dave. We'll open it for public comment. 49 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Anne Devitt: Hello, my name is Anne Devitt and I'm the last properly north of Pleasant View, the county I believe. I don't know, are you proposing to go in front of my properly or are you proposing to stop at Holly Lane? Hoffman: We're proposing to stop at Holly Lane. Anne Devitt: I'm one of the people that you did not hear from north of Pleasant View and my children did cry thinking that our marsh would be taken out in front of our house so that's nice that that will not happen. There is some concern from me, it ending at Holly Lane. Holly Lane goes down to the lake and I think that it wouldn't be comfortable for anybody on Holly Lane to have a lot of traffic being, discovering that the lake is down there and dumping down onto Holly Lane. It would create I think a lot of traffic potentially. Audience: ... Anne Devitt: ... sure can. Now we're the only ones who know. Berg: All the way down to Christmas? Anne Devitt: Yes. Berg: Really? Anne Devitt: And everyone will find that out quickly. Roeser: Well no one's found it out for years. I don't think that's. Anne Devitt: Well, if there's a trail that dead ends there, it may. I'm saying that it's a possibility. So it may impact that street in a larger way than you've anticipated. Again, the fact that it dead ends would make sense to me to dead end somewhat closer to Pleasant View. You have Lake Lucy there and people could hook up to Lake Lucy to then access the Galpin trail so that you aren't dead ending. You, the trail in essence is continuing. You would cross over then to Lake Lucy. Does that make sense? Lash: If we stopped it at Lake Lucy? Anne Devitt: Lake Lucy or to Pleasant View. That area at any rate. Also you're saying that you don't envision Shorewood hooking up to this trail in the future, near future anyway so to me Pleasant View is a fine place and that's just me speaking and I'm north of Pleasant View. Thank you. Lash: Do we have other public comments? Madeline Payne: I'm Madeline Payne and I live on Shenandoah Circle. Huh, I'm shaking. Shenandoah Circle and no one knows where that is, right? Okay. Okay. My biggest concern is 50 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 the drainage. We've already been flooded out and so I think you've talked to Jenny about that, so that's my really concern is the drainage. I also have a question about why, if it's possible to move where those trees are in Chaparral. If that could be moved out on Powers there by Shenandoah. She's got about 5 steps to her house. Staff'... Madeline Payne: But just the privacy fact of walking out your front door. That's what my concern was. Is that possible to move that up too then or not? Dave Nyberg: I'll wait until you're done... Madeline Payne: Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, the driveway when you come up the hill. Is that going to be tampered with at all, because it's our driveway, not a road? How will they go about doing that with that too? Thanks. Dave Nyberg: Just on last, was it Friday or Monday? All these meetings are running together. On Monday we met with Ms. Hayes who is a neighbor of the woman who just spoke. Oh, there she is. Hi. What we were explaining to Ms. Hayes is that her lot, and even the lot to the north of her is kind of a difficult lot because the runoff from the highway flows off of the highway. There's really no ditch there. It just keeps right on going through their yards. Manders: Where is this specifically? I think it's like north of Carver Beach? Dave Nyberg: Yeah. It's the very next, there's a. Hoffman: Carver Beach Road is here. A large wetland with cattails here. Dave Nyberg: That's City of Chanhassen property. Hoffman: ... private driveway. It's not a city road. And Jenny Hayes was here, the other resident who spoke is behind her lot... Dave Nyberg: I don't think we could move the trail much closer to the road there, and the reason is that there's an existing culvert under Shenandoah that we need to keep the trail on the back side of that, and what I was explaining to Ms. Hayes when we met at her site, out at her property is that what we're going to try and do is tip that trail and build it up a little bit to in a sense create a ditch belween Powers Boulevard and the trail. So that when the runoff comes off of the county road, we can send that water down to the culvert rather than letting it come over the trail and continue in that direction that it does now towards her property. There are a number of drainage issues on the project like that. Most of these roads, well all of them, really are county or MnDot roads and they've been there for years. Been upgraded. There's always these kind of drainage problems with roads like this and any time we can improve a situation, we're going to try and do that so. On the one hand I don't think we can move the trail closer because it'd be right in line with that culvert. But I think we can improve the drainage. Does that answer one of your 51 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 questions anyway? As far as the road crossing. The road crossing will not be impacted. We would ramp the trail up and cross the road at the existing grade of the road and we are investigating, upon Mrs. Hayes' request, whether that road is private or a public right-of-way and as I indicated to her on Monday, we'll be getting back to her with an answer on that once we do some. If it is private, that's important for us because if it is private, we need an easement to cut across it. Does that answer your second question? Audience... Dave Nyberg: Where the trail is? Yeah, what we're going to try and do is tip the trail towards the road so that runoff from the trail flows into that, somewhat of kind of a swale that we would create between the trail and Powers Boulevard. Paul Pettinger: Paul Pettinger, 7267 Pontiac Circle and I have two questions. Where the stakes are right now, and I know that we're talking about moving the trail outside of where they're staked but I know that there's orange, blue and green or green and blue, however it goes. Is the last stake, the inside stake, is that as far as you need for construction zone work, or whatever it is? Is that the idea or will you actually have to go further inside of that? Dave Nyberg: What Mr. Pettinger is alluding to are the stakes that we put in... stakes are really valid anymore... What I'd anticipate now is just a very, if you were to... that way and then any grading... Paul Pettinger: Well it would be moved correspondingly, the 6 feet or 8 feet or whatever it is from the center? Dave Nyberg: Yeah. And there may be places where... Paul Pettinger: Okay. In connection with the fence is what I was thinking of. If you mn the trail fairly close to the fence, and the way it's staked right now is you actually would have to, you'd be running over, or move the fence or whatever it is, but that, you don't envision that really being a problem in most cases? Dave Nyberg:... Paul Pettinger: Right, I understand that part. I don't have any problem with that. And the second thing was, last week Mr. Berg asked about the 8 foot versus the 6 foot, and I know Todd you just, but I wasn't sure I understood what you just said about that. If you could reiterate that for me. The 8 foot trail versus the 6 foot trail. Hoffman: Sure. We really, in proposing to move the trail out, off of the private properly, we advocate for the 8 foot width for a variety of reasons. It has to do with consistency throughout the corridor. The variety of uses we can see on these trails. You know bicycles which are non- commuters which like, enjoy using these trails. Rollerbladers, walkers. An 8 foot width is in, you know nationwide as far as trail development, really the minimum for these multi-use trails. 52 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 You see many more trails going to 10 feet, 12 feet and in the City of Minneapolis, up to 16 feet in width to accommodate the volume and variety of uses on these trails. And so in moving the trail out, we did not even consider the possibility of reducing. We did not think that, we would not recommend that option. We do not think it's... Lash: For usability and maintenance. Hoffman: Plowing, yeah. Paul Pettinger: Thank you. And if in fact we're not going to lose any trees except that scrub tree around the pole and the other 57 trees do thank you for their, for saving. Thank you. Lash: Thanks. Okay, anybody else? Mrs. Hamilton: Once again I'm not sure whether you were talking about my property. Hoffman: Yes we were. Mrs. Hamilton: Oh! Well you said on the comer of Chaparral. Hoffman: Oh excuse us. Mrs. Hamilton: On Kerber? Lash: Kerber and. Mrs. Hamilton: Yeah. I'm most concerned about privacy and safety there and would like to request that the city might put up some kind of hedge or. Lash: Do you guys in your association, do you have any kind of, I mean? Mrs. Hamilton: I've asked the association and they say that's up to the City. I ask the City, they said that's up to the association so you tell me. I don't know. Lash: If it's in the right-of-way, we would be able to, if we wanted to put up a couple of trees or something, we could, couldn't we? Hoffman: Not in the right-of-way. Audience: You have turned people down about this before... Hoffman: Any additional shrubbery needs to be on the private property for the most part. That's the reason for the big, the.., address Ms. Hamilton's issues directly. You can look right at her lot here and the survey shows the existing fence. And this trail alignment would actually be moving, 53 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 if we're successful in our venture, moving out off of the property line, and traveling, it's to the outside of that large depression in this area. Mrs. Hamilton: Oh, so the ditch would still be there? If the trail would be on the outside of that? Hoffman: Correct. Mrs. Hamilton: Because we do have a drainage problem there. We've been flooded also. And we have asked that some kind of drainage piles be put in there or something. No one has done anything I think probably knowing that this was in the works. Hoffman: Yeah, that may or may not be the case. It's our hope, we don't want to build this trail in a drainage, an area that doesn't drain and so. Mrs. Hamilton: It's all clay there so it's. Hoffman: All of Chanhassen is. Lash: There's clay everywhere. Mrs. Hamilton: But there is a huge drainage hole right on the comer. Hoffman: We hope to improve that drainage pattern with the construction. Mrs. Hamilton: But the berm is what's keeping the water on our patios from going down in here. So it just stays on our patios and it gets, last year it was in my neighbor's door. Hoffman: Those are either on private property, which would be the responsibility of the private property owner. Mrs. Hamilton: I still don't understand why it's not on the west side. Is Eckankar involved in that at all? I mean, is their property a no no? I just don't understand because they're talking about crossing over on Galpin. Well, there's a lot of crossovers and now we have a new stop light that's down by Target and I don't understand what the connection has to be from our side. It's so condense there and I can't believe my neighbors are here to protest this. Where are all 940 of them or whatever? But anyhow, I'm concerned about my safety on the comer and wanted to request that maybe the City could work with us on some kind of barrier. Whether it's green or a fence or whatever. To give us some, a little privacy because we aren't lucky enough to have the trees that are down the way. And we've been planting some but you know, it takes years and years for those to grow. And other than the drainage, the plows do throw the salt a long way. That's the disadvantage of the trees but we really need something. I'm glad to see you've moved it out. I guess that's all I was concerned about. If the City could work with us on some kind of barrier there, to give us some privacy and some safety because I do see bicycle traffic increasing and that usually means teenagers. And teenagers do the vandalism and we've already had it there and we're very, we're so obvious because we don't have any trees that it's easy to egg the house 54 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 or, which was done before. And that kind of thing. And being alone and that's the only way we can look out so it is a concern to both my neighbor and me. Thank you. Lash: Is there anyone else with comments? Audience: Really... I still haven't heard a reason that.., why it is not, on the east side rather than the west side... Lash: We have addressed it, yeah. Audience: I still haven't heard. Lash: And I, we know you don't understand but the point that we're trying to do, and I think staff put this in a letter and we talked about it last week, is we're trying to make the connection, the flow, the density of population is on the east side of the road. The flow of pedestrian and bicycle traffic will be gravitating towards town. We have already started, we already invested a huge amount of money at the southern end of Powers where we had to go across the, you know where the big gully is. You know what I'm talking about? Okay, with that retaining wall. That was a tremendous amount of money so there's no way that we would do that on the west side again and just abandon that. So there are some different pieces that when you put it together, that's the logical way and it's the way of eliminating crossovers on a busy road. Audience... Lash: No. The plan always was to have it on the east side of the road. Audience... Lash: Well you know, in your opinion yeah. But the planners. You know when the comprehensive plan was done, it was logically looked at as being on the east side of the road... And there was thought put into that and you know there's differing opinions and obviously where it goes, it impacts your yard. You know so you have a different opinion and we understand that but.., and it depends on where you're going. Roeser: There's a light down here at the comer. Lash: Yeah, you can go down. Roeser: If they're going to Lake Ann, they're crossing at a light. Lash: Okay, sure. Thanks for your comments. We're going to close public comments now. Do we have, we'll start at... 55 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Howe: I think again, having missed the meeting last week, I think it's commendable what, if we've done if we've moved that trail over to save trees and perhaps appease some of these residents fears. As it stands now, I agree with the stafffs recommendation. Lash: Jane. Meger: I guess I would agree with comments too. Obviously I'm in favor of the 8 foot trail versus 6 foot and that seems pretty well taken care of already. I do hope that as we're planning and it sounds like there is a lot of problems, both here and on Galpin with drainage and making sure that we don't put something in there..the way that we drain it or what we do there actually causes us to have to get out there and.., what not. Or cause damage to, further damage to properly owners so those would be my big concerns. Lash: I guess I'd like to hear both your comments as far as terminus point. Did you want to go all the way to Holly? Do you want to stop at Pleasant View? Do you have opinions on that? Meger: I knew that you could get to the lake from Holly since I've done that. But I kind of would like to see it... Lash: How about you Mike? Hoffman: $32,300.00 to $37,400.00. Howe: Again, we're doing this now. I'd say make.., build to the max. So I would say take it to Holly. Lash: Rod? Berg: In talking to my bike experts. Obviously they do more exercising than me. Lash: But it's not your turn. Berg: Then what did you say my name for? Lash: I said Rod. Can you please wait your turn? Berg: Sorry. Rod, I apologize. Franks: I'm glad we are going to take the chance and push that trail out and.., that's the way we should go so I'm really glad to see the staff recommendation because I think it's the right way to go and... I would be in favor of the trail, I also agree that as discussed, it should extend all the way to Holly Lane. Lash: Fred. 56 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Berg: Thank you. As I was saying earlier. I don't know what my experts are going to say, now that I'm, I've asked the question. They're suggesting that in terms of safety, there's a not a lot of benefit to be gained by going all the way to Holly past Pleasant View. So I think I'm inclined to lean towards stopping at Pleasant View and taking a look at that $32,000.00 for additional expenses we may have other places on Galpin or other places that we don't know of that may go up when the bids come in. Hoffman: ... resident on the phone record that I noted her name on here. Charles and Felicia Strickhauser... to Holly Lane. Lash: How much past Pleasant View are they? Hoffman: The first properly south of Holly Lane. If you recall early on when we talked about deleting that segment, I noted there was one properly owner that the only one who ever called and told us to tear down their fence, their trees, and take their properly, wanted the trail and that's the properly owner. Franks: Is the speed limit still 50 mph on that part of the road? Roeser: No, it's down to 45. Berg: Yeah. I mean that doesn't mean they're not going to speed. Pleasant View just seems to be a natural terminus to me. I mean it links us up to go around Lotus and whatever and make connections that way. Lash: I could easily agree with you Fred. I could be persuaded. It seems logical and if we don't have any hopes of Shorewood ever doing anything, it's just going to stop there. Berg: Realistically I don't know when we'll have any more money to get to Shorewood. Roeser: I'll go along with staff's recommendation. I don't care really if it ends at Pleasant View... I don't feel strongly about going to Holly, you know. Lash: Jim. Manders: Holly is not, or is Holly the end? Hoffman: No. Roeser: Oh it isn't? Manders: How much further is it? Hoffman: Just that one more lot, right? 57 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Lash: And then is there a street there too?... Manders: So is it right at that transition from 45 to 30 is where that happens at? Is that where you're saying for... ? Berg: You live before the long white fence, right? Audience... Berg: How far are you from where the speed limit drops to 30? Audience... Manders: I guess my preference would be to take the trail all the way but if there's a consideration to money, whatever, I can back ofl~ Lash: I don't even want to necessarily look at the money thing. I mean not that money isn't important but I want to sort of look at the logical. I could be... Manders: And the only reason I say that is that, if it isn't done now, it will never get done. Lash: Right. Manders: And I realize we could put it in at some point, it won't happen. That's the way I'm thinking. So either we're going to do it or we're going to not do it and it just won't get done. And I'm, I guess I'm not so nervous about it not being done because I think that area of the road has fairly good sight lines and so it isn't. My other question is pertaining to the road around, or the trail around the townhouse area from Kerber to Butte. So we're talking no guardrail? Hoffman: Correct. Manders: Talking 8 foot trail on the east bank of the ditch line. Hoffman: Correct. Manders: And that can fit in there with something like 20 feet clear to the center of the road. To the edge of the road. Audience... Lash: Okay, who'd like to make a motion? Roeser: I'll take staff recommendation for Powers Boulevard bike trail. Lash: ... going all the way to Holly? 58 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Roeser: And we'll let perhaps the engineer decide.., go to Pleasant View or Holly... Lash: We decide. Roeser: We decide? Lash: I'm not going down that road. Roeser: Alright, Powers Boulevard to Holly. Lash: Is there a second? Franks: I second. Roeser moved, Franks seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission recommends to approve the bike trail for Powers Boulevard per staff's recommendation to Holly Lane. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Hoffman: Jan can we note on the record, before we leave trails, the response to Mr. Kimble's concerns on Highway 101 ? Lash: Yes. Dave Nyberg: Chair Lash and commissioners. We heard a concern from a resident at the meeting last Tuesday, Mr. Kimble who lives at the sharp bend on TH 101 near Kiowa Trail. He asked us to consider doing something, I think were his words at that comer. He's had a lot of, or witnessed a lot of vehicles going off the road there. We contacted MnDot, the same people that are reviewing that segment of trail. We really have to get their permission to do anything there, including putting in the trail and their response was, that anybody that goes off the road at that comer is traveling too fast. They have that, it's posted 40 mph. I believe it's, yeah 30 mph with a speed caution sign that's signed for 30 mph southbound, 25 northbound, and that's their position on it. They are very opposed to constructing a guardrail for some of the same reasons as the county and I really don't think they would approve it and I probably wouldn't recommend installing guardrails there. I think what may help the situation there, and you have to get beyond the idea that a car's going to go off the road and hit somebody on that trail. If you can think of what we're doing to the trail there, we're extending out quite a wide boulevard beyond that road. Right now it drops right off into the ditch. Once our trail is constructed the culvert will be extended at the ditch. The trail will be maybe 15 feet off the edge of the travel lane. What we're doing in a sense is putting in a flat recovery zone and granted the trail will cross through that area, but I'm assuming a lot of these cars are probably going off the road at night. They can't see the turn as well, or they're new to the area or just passing through, what have you. So the chances of pedestrians being at that point when a car would go off the road, we're really not making the situation any more dangerous than it would be now I don't think. 59 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Howe: A 15 foot recovery zone? Dave Nyberg: Yeah, I'm not even sure what the actual dimensions are but I think the trail is about 15 feet from the edge of the travel lane, whereas right now once you get off the road it drops straight down and this is where the, you know all these cars go off into this ditch. We're going to flatten that out. Bring an embankment out across the creek, put our trail in and then drop down. Lash: Ifa car went ofl] would it still go down the embankment before it got to the trail or is that embankment going to be filled in? Dave Nyberg: The embankment will be filled in, that's right. Lash: No, I mean the difference between now and then is that we're going to be encouraging people beyond, in that area. Dave Nyberg: That is the difference, correct. Lash: Right now we're not encouraging them and most people aren't insane enough to walk along there, especially at night. So that's a big difference. Dave Nyberg: It is a difference but you know there are sidewalks and trails all over along highways and along curbs where that can happen. I mean there's really nothing you can do about it. It's just a fact of how roads and trails are built. They're always along corridors together. Lash: You know.., to indicate that if they leave the road, it's because they're going too fast. Well, dah you know. But that isn't going to help the poor person that's walking down the trail when you know somebody who doesn't know where they're going flies off the road. And you know they're kind of making an assumption that I'm a trail. I'm off the road. I'm somewhat safe, you know and then here comes the car flying off the road. You know and I don't know how often that stuff happens but once is quite often you know. Dave Nyberg: Yeah. We've got the same problem on TH 101, the connection trail segment by A1 Klingelhulz' house. There's a very sharp bend there. It's signed 20 mph. I'm sure there's several cars have slid off the road at that comer. And we're putting the trail through that comer on the outside. We had proposed guardrails at that location but I doubt whether MnDot will allow that. Lash: Would it be possible to just sign it, you know ahead of time, pedestrians or some king of thing that just heightens people's yeah. Heightens people's awareness to the fact that there's people walking and biking there so maybe. Dave Nyberg: We could address that with MnDot at the time of our review of their comments. Manders: Is the right-of-way there, because you're saying that there's a drop off.., you're proposing to put the trail inside of that drop oflk Is it just not possible to put the trail outside so 60 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 that if they go offthe road, they end up in the drink and you get the trail on the back side so we're safe? Dave Nyberg: We could possibly do that but I think the trail would have to move even farther into the Kimble properly. Right now we're obtaining an easement from them to construct the trail really at a minimum distance away from the travel lanes and like you're saying, if we push it farther into their yard, we can leave a, it'd be maybe like a hole. Manders: That's basically our option. Dave Nyberg: Yeah. And then the vehicles would continue to drop into that hole and then it would go from that to the trail. Lash: I would prefer that. Dave Nyberg: We can present that to the resident there because that would be, if he would be acceptable to that. We have to get an easement from him. His house is quite a ways back from the road there so he may be receptive to that. Okay, thanks. Lash: Thanks Dave. Okay, let's move onto new business. Hoffman: I'd recommend you go ahead and ask any questions. Take action on any items which need action and then ask any questions on any other items. PARK AND REC COMMISSION CANDIDATES. Lash: Okay, we need to make a recommendation of three candidates to be interviewed by City Council. Manders: How do you want to handle this? Lash: Well the people who.., did you rate yours 1, 2, 3. Franks: We each ranked our top 4. Lash: And then did you meet already to come to consensus on your top three? Manders: Well the issue is not, us three didn't see the same people... Lash: ... and Jim, did you interview all of them too? Manders: I guess I know all of them at some point so it isn't like I don't, it's just that I wasn't there for the two interviews. And I'm open to their recommendation on the two people that I didn't see so I can, if they're favorable with that, I could go with it. 61 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Lash: Okay so Rod, you saw them all, right? And you ranked 1, 2, 3. Okay. Why don't you wrap them up and. Franks: Number one ranking was Lindell... Number two was David Moes. Number three was Jennifer... Lash: How does that compare with yours Jim? Manders: I didn't talk to Lindell but I could certainly put him in the top four. My top choices would have been Curt, David Moes, Jennifer and one of the others. Cindy or Lindell, and Lindell would be the top one out of that. Lash: Mike. Howe: Do you want bio's on these people or opinions on them or just my rankings? Lash: Just your rankings. Howe: I thought Lindell was very impressive. He'd be my number one. I think it's important to keep a woman on the commission and that's not from a politically correct standpoint. Lash: ... feminine side whenever he can. Howe: You'd better shave the beard then. Anyway. I just don't know if I saw a candidate that, who was a man that was better, I don't know ifI could take that route. But I do think it is important that we retain at least two females but I'm going to recommend three men here. So Lindell would be number one for me. I thought Mike Mullins, I don't know him well but I thought he did a great job on the referendum. I like Mike. He's my number two. Number three would be Dave Moes because I did interview him. And my fourth pick would be Jennifer... Lash: Can I ask a point of... because I don't know where any of these people live. Did you know the criteria and you're supposed to look geographically and all that kind of stufl] right? Howe: Yep. Manders: I don't know where all of them live but Curt has lived in three places in Chanhassen. He presently lives out off of Pioneer and TH 101. Down in that direction. Mike lives over I think off of Galpin south. David Moes is in Lotus North. Joseph Baloney I believe is in Chan Hills I believe. Lash: Where we have some gapping holes in some type of representation is the northern, which would be like the north Lotus area, or west. That would be Cindy Hanson would be west... And south. Howe: Well south, somebody by Pioneer would be... 62 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Lash: Because you're as far south as we go Mike, and that's down Galpin. But I mean we don't have anybody south. We don't have anybody west. We don't have anybody north. So I don't know where any of these people live but it'd be one of my goals to try and get somebody from one of those areas, and I don't know where... Howe: How are we going to do this? We've got to agree on three, right? Hoffman: Yep. Howe: Do we have common names for? Lash: You had Lindell. Didn't you all have that? Manders: I could go with that. Franks: And Curt, did you have Curt? Howe: I didn't have Curt. I wasn't there for him. If you guys have a high opinion of him... Manders: Curt is out off of Pioneer and TH 101, out there. Lash: And you said Dave Moes is up by North Lotus? It'd be nice if the other ones is from out west. Howe: Jennifer. Lash: Or Cindy, she is too isn't she? Minnewashta. Howe: I'm okay with that. Manders: I didn't talk to Cindy but I did talk, meet with Jennifer and so I can guess.., so I guess based on the meeting that Cindy was at and some interest going, I would potentially go with her. I guess it doesn't matter. Howe: Jennifer, didn't she, she had an interesting background in like therapeutic recreation or something which I thought was a different perspective. That was a plus for me. Manders: I mean I can go either way so I don't know that I can make a choice because I didn't talk to both of them. Berg: I wouldn't want to be saying a year from now to myself... Lash: No, but if they're all three of them are on their list to start with. Aren't they?... 63 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Hoffman: You're going to have another appointment coming up shortly I think. Eventually. Manders: Potentially I would also go, I mean David isn't out of my running either. Howe: Well we've got him. Berg: Moes and Lindell, right? Howe: Yeah, I thought those were the two... Manders: Curt is in the running too. Franks: Curt is very professional. He's the Director of the Eden Prairie Recreation Center. Howe: Can we give them four? (There was a tape change at this point in the discussion. Lash: I know I didn't interview but I'm going to throw in my opinion anyway. I probably would have considered who does it as their job, just because I think it's, not that that wouldn't, not that they don't know what they're talking about, but I think that our role up here is basically novice residents rather than educated stafl~ More stafl~ you know and I think it's difficult sometimes to switch your gears between what you know as a professional and what you think as a resident... Franks: ... but Lindell, just didn't come across. I had the same bias going into the interview you know. Lash: I just suggest that the next time we do this.., all be there. Howe: I would move, ifI may, that as a commission we recommend to the Council for appointment to the Park and Recreation Commission, for the Council's consideration, David Moes, Jennifer Linn and Curt... Lash: Is there a second? Hoffman: Okay, we need four to vote. Berg: We'll vote but the second should come from one of you two. Manders: I think it's a tough choice and I'm not opposed to it, so I'll second it. Howe moved, Manders seconded to reconunend to the Council for appointment to the Park and Recreation Commission, for the Council's consideration, David Moes, Jennifer Linn and Curt. All voted in favor and the motion carried. 64 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Lash: Next time let's try and make it so that there's more of us who can go, so we don't have to run into this I guess. I know this was a bad month because we had so many meetings and it was hard you know, but postpone it or something. PROGRAM REPORTS: Lash: We've February Festival. Jerry, are you looking for volunteers? Ruegemer: Yes. I was going to get to that, but I mean do I need to go through each report? Berg: No. Ruegemer: Are there any questions on Feb Fest at this point?... Lash: Are you looking for volunteers?... Ruegemer: ... Fred, Jan. Rod, is that a hand up? Or like, oh my god? Franks: No. Howe: I'll be fishing. I'll be there. Lash: We don't have to draw prizes every 30 seconds, right? Okay. Manders: I think so but I can't guarantee it. Ruegemer: Jim and question mark... Lash: Summer tennis. Yes, anything we have to know or can we just. Dexter: All I'm asking is that if you go ahead and approve the recommendation. Berg: So moved. Lash; Is there a second? Berg moved and the motion was seconded to approve the sununer tennis recommendations. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Lash: Okay, we'll move onto the 4th of July celebration. We're talking about new bands, right? Ruegemer: Well this is, yeah. That'd be a separate item. This is just when the days are going to be and then they just talked, you know the parade is going to happen again this year on the 4th of July. 65 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Berg: That would be Saturday then. Ruegemer: That would be Saturday, the 4th of July. There was talk last year about potentially, you know what do we do with all these people. We have them up town. A parade to come up for an hour, hour and a half. Boom. The parade's done. Everybody says, now what do we do? Lash: Here's my idea when I read this. I didn't know you already had the dates picked. Have the parade and the street dance and the kiddie parade and everything Friday and then all the fun stuff at Lake Ann and the fireworks Saturday. Can you make the parade Thursday or not? I mean Friday? Hoffman: Friday's... Lash: No, but then you've got people you know flip flopping all over. There's no, if you come for the parade you've got the kiddie parade, you know and we've got some stuff set up here.., oh, you don't think most people will be off Friday? Howe: No, they'll be off on Monday. Ruegemer: I think a lot of people will work Friday... Lash: Well okay. I guess I just was assuming most people would have Friday oflk So if that's not the case then. Ruegemer: I guess what we're trying to do is really just get direction. You know what the thoughts of the commission are. I would like to start, you know we want to get the fire going on the 4th of July already and really get going on that and secure, if we need to secure for that. And we don't have to make that decision tonight. I'm just looking for you know, some parameters. Berg: ... utilize downtown and use that as the core of the city. Lash: Well we have the street dance and everything here. You know the parade and all that stuff is here. It'd just be nice to have it all, you know in a continuous flow. Ruegemer: Would it be helpful to potentially call a special meeting to deal with that other than tonight, if we don't have time to go through that type of thing. Bring in other key people to go through that. Manders: The question is whether to have the parade on Friday or Saturday? Ruegemer: Well no, it's not so much in question. I think if the parade is I think somewhat set on for the 4th of July. It's just we're securing entertainment and those types of things at this point. I think what we're trying, I think the big question looming out there is what do we do for that I guess Lake Ann day? I mean there's no reason why the fireworks, well I guess the fireworks will 66 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 probably have to stay at Lake Ann. But just continue then from the parade in a downtown manner. Whether we, Jan... carnival of some kind or you know additional food vendors. Howe: ... days up in Champlin and they had that whole kids carnival... Ruegemer: Carnies mn around, no teeth, that type of thing? Hoffman: I think Jan should sleep on it. You should all call tomorrow and we'll... Howe: You had a recommendation for a band though didn't you Jerry? Ruegemer: I do. Lash: Yeah let's, we'll think about it. Ruegemer: Alright, we'll talk. Just keep your thinking caps. Lash: ... and find out like for sure what they want to do and when.., okay. Ruegemer: Would the commission like to hear any demo tapes or is this satisfactory? Roeser: If you want Casablanca. Ruegemer: Ron knows. Berg: What did the High Tops cost last year? Ruegemer: 16. (The commission listened to demo tapes at this point.) Ruegemer: Hot Rod is more like a High Tops type of a band. 50's-60's. Casablanca is a little bit more progressive. Little more, more horns. More people. More action .... the listing in the staff report. Lash: Is there a motion on that? Do we need a motion? We have enough money to do it, I'm assuming. Okay. Ruegemer: Yeah, I have over $3,000.00 in monies for entertainment so to adjust, if we do need... I'll just adjust my budget in other areas to accommodate the entertainment. Meger: I move that we select Casablanca Orchestra for the July 4th. Howe: I second. 67 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Meger moved, Howe seconded to select Casablanca Orchestra for the 4th Of July entertainment. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Lash: Adult softball league eligibility. Did everybody have a chance to read it? Yep, I thought it was good. Ruegemer: ... because it's 11:25? You know everybody.., we took care of the residents first and... Lash: Good job Jer. Do we need to do anything with that? Berg: Motion to approve. Lash: Motion to approve stafl's recommendation for the adult softball league eligibility. Howe: So moved. Lash: Is there a second? Berg: Second. Howe moved, Berg seconded that the Park and Recreation Commission approve staWs recommendation for the adult softball league eligibility. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Lash: Okay, next one is the Rec Center monthly report. Is this Jason? Jason: Yes. Do you have any questions? Berg: Why the heck did you come? Lash: Looks good. Thanks... Jason. Okay, commission goals. Hoffman: I'd like to take the next hour and a half and establish 1998 commission goals. Howe: I move that we table. Berg: We have them already. Lash: Okay, is there a second to that? Howe moved, Berg seconded to table the 1998 Park and Recreation Commission goals. All voted in favor and the motion carried. COMMISSION PRESENTATIONS: 68 Park and Rec Commission Meeting - January 27, 1998 Roeser: I think there's going to be a problem without lifeguards... Hoffman: I think the Council's going to bring it up next Council meeting. Berg: At least there was some semblance of order when you have a lifeguard out there. With nobody there it's going to be... Lash: ... I had a whole room full of people and I said... Hoffman: It's the town talk. They went until quarter to midnight last night at their meeting so they ran out of time too to talk about it. Lash: Did we top that? No. Howe: Did they find the guys that broke into? Ruegemer: No. I don't think we will either, to be honest. Lash: Any other commission members? We don't have any city presentations I don't think... Ruegemer: Commissioners, I have one quick item. If people remember last year we had the INT water-ski tournament out at Lake Susan. There will be, they are requesting another event again this year. That weekend will be May 30th and 31st. At Lake Susan again. I think they were extremely pleased with that location. We'll be, I'll be writing that report for City Council and that will be on the February 9th agenda for that. Does anybody have any questions prior to that, please call me. Berg: Would you let the people around Lake Susan know that? That it's coming. Ruegemer: Last year we had a letter from myself and from the tournament director kind of laying out the tournament. The weekend time line. All that type of thing. What I would propose to do is write that agenda, or write that memo for the agenda and then also include that. We have the mailing list from last year and we can certainly update that and then get that information to the residents around Lake... Lash: Okay, anybody else with anything on their... Manders moved, Howe seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned. Submitted by Todd Hoffman Park and Recreation Director Prepared by Nann Opheim 69